Although it was already known that Paris Saint-Germain's preferred choice for their goalkeeper was Gianluigi Donnarumma, 'L'Equipe' has revealed that he is the favourite of their new coach, Christophe Galtier, so Keylor Navas his close to leaving the project. The board is looking for a way out.
Paris Saint-Germain's new coach Christophe Galtier has chosen Italy's Gianluigi Donnarumma as his first choice goalkeeper, as the club looks for a way out of their other star keeper, Costa Rica's Keylor Navas.
'L'Equipe' reports on Thursday that PSG's new technical management, including external football consultant Luis Campos (who acts as informal sporting director), considers Donnarumma to be the player of the future because he is 23 years old, while Navas will be 36 in December.
The Italian landed in Paris a year ago as a market opportunity, having arrived for free at the end of his contract with Milan. During their first season together, former coach Mauricio Pochettino rotated the two without giving the impression that there was a clear starter. Navas made 26 starts to Donnarumma's 23.
At his introductory press conference on Tuesday, Galtier made clear his preference for having a definite first-choice goalkeeper, although "the number 2 can move to number 1 depending on his performance. I've always worked like that because I think it's simpler," he explained.
The French club now believe Gigi should be their goalkeeper of reference even if he needs to improve in some areas of his game, such as risk-taking, reports 'L'Equipe'. The clearest example of this was his loss of the ball to Benzema on 9th March at the Santiago Bernabeu, which led to Real Madrid's first goal in the 3-1 comeback that sent the Spanish side through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League last season.
Although the two world-class goalkeepers have had no problems living together, their rivalry has been noticeable. PSG's problem with Navas will now be to find a buyer, as the goalkeeper has two years left on a generous contract (12 million euros gross per season) and, last May, he declared that he and his family were very well off in Paris and that he did not want to move.