Not long ago, in contrast to the current period, the Paris Saint-Germain was a team that used the youth team as a bargaining chip in transfers or to make money to balance its Financial Fair-Play. The youth players who made it to the first team were an exception, a miracle, like Rabiot or Kimpembe, and others, like Nkunku, Coman, Diaby or even Maignan, were invited to pack their bags quickly because they did not have a place in the French capital.
The goalkeeper did not even have a chance to prove his worth at PSG. It was a time when glamor and large investments dominated the news and Maignan, therefore, was forced to leave. He officially debuted with the capital club in July 2013, replacing Douchez, but he soon learned that the youth team, at that time, was not the priority of the sports management, nor of Qatar.
In 2015, Lille signed Mike Maignan, who gradually became one of the most promising goalkeepers in French football. Its peak came in the 2020-2021 season, in which the northern team, against all odds, was proclaimed champion of Ligue 1.snatching the title from PSG. A dream season, with a very high percentage from the penalty spot, conceding only 23 goals, was enough for the big clubs in Europe to monitor the French Guiana-born player.
Fate is capricious and Milan, which had lost Donnarumma, signed by PSG, Maignan’s training club, decided to sign him for 15 million euros. A very correct decision in the historic Italian club, with which he won the title in 2022, being decisive for his countless stops. Didier Deschamps, no stranger to his evolution, began to call him regularly. He had debuted in 2020, but due to a plague of injuries. He was already Lloris’s second, whose retirement was about to fall.
After the World Cup in Qatar, The former Tottenham player announced his international retirement, leaving a void almost irreparable for any other goalkeeper. Maignan, however, did not wrinkle and, as in Lille, He took the bull by the horns. He imposed himself as a starter from the first day and his saves and reflexes ensured the goal in the French team for many years.
Mike Maignan is showing at the Euro Cup that Didier Deschamps was not wrong in giving him the reins of ownership with France. Guardian of the goal, life insurance between the sticks, the PSG youth player paved the way for victory of the tricolor in his debut, making an extraordinary save on Baumgartner, in the first half, which could have undoubtedly changed the outcome of the match. Saliba defined him at a press conference as “a natural leader”, a goalkeeper who does not stop ordering the team.
Against the Netherlands it was also decisive. cFour saves, two of them at close range, including a spectacular one from Frimpong in the early stages of the game, established him as a more than reliable goalkeeper. And, in the last game of the group stage, against Poland, Maignan saved a penalty from Lewandowski, his specialty, since he has the highest success rate of saves from eleven meters in the history of Ligue 1, but the referee ordered it to be repeated and the second time he couldn’t block it. France clings to Mbappé, also to Maignan, to go far in the Euro Cup.
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