This Friday, as part of the 12th day of Ligue 1 2024-2025, Paris Saint-Germain faced Toulouse at the Parc des Princes. Toulouse coach Carles Martinez Novell spoke to DAZN after the 3-0 victory. He described the result as frustrating, but also positive. The step was simply too high.
Martinez Novell “they also had a lot of chances.”
Can we imagine your frustration or regrets?
I was talking to you before, and to win here you have to be perfect. You have to be clinical and of course we had those chances to get the draw, but they also had a lot of chances. It’s normal, it’s PSG too, and if you don’t score in those situations, it’s even more difficult.
Martinez Novell “you had to believe in it more.”
Did you get those chances?
At half-time we talked to the team and we knew that to win here, we had to believe more. For me, in the first half we were competitive, we stayed together, but with the ball we had to believe more and believe we could go on.
It’s not easy, but as I said, we have to believe. Finally, in the second half, with some changes, we managed to create more chances, but once again we have to score.
Otherwise, it’s impossible. It’s hard to win here, so we’ve got to move on and get ready for the next game against Auxerre, because we’ve done some very good things, and just because we lost today doesn’t mean we should think everything’s a disaster.
Martinez Novell “they do incredible things.”
How did you prepare for the match?
Yes, I tried to use all that. I know we won here at the end of last year because we played a good game, but also because the team had disconnected at the time. Maybe it wasn’t easy today, because we couldn’t think about Tuesday, we had to be in the game right to the end and we had to survive the results.
We’d almost managed to stick to our plan, but we had to believe. There were places on the pitch where PSG were incredible, where they did incredible things, particularly when they lost the ball.
We have to try and be more aggressive, and in the first half we weren’t quite there. It’s difficult to do all that. Today we tried, my players wanted to, but it’s not easy.
Martinez Novell “We did some nice things.”
Was PSG surprised by your high pressing?
We had to defend together, we had to be high up so that when the ball reached their goalkeeper, it was a very good opportunity to be high up. We couldn’t be too low, otherwise it would be too difficult against the PSG players.
We did some good things, but offensively in the first half we could have been better, and in the second I think our team believed in it, but it wasn’t enough.
