“Unai Emery was mad”, Kimpembe recalls a turning point

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·21 May 2026

“Unai Emery was mad”, Kimpembe recalls a turning point

While Presnel Kimpembe’s time at Paris Saint-Germain ended in a very difficult way because of two years of injuries, he also experienced some great moments. One of them was his Champions League debut, in the first leg of the round of 16 against FC Barcelona in 2017. Speaking to RMC Sport, the 30-year-old defender, now with Qatar SC, explained how coach Unai Emery threw him in.

Kimpembe: “He just dropped it on me like that.”

“The coach called me to his room the day before the match. I get there, I knock on his door. He says to me: ‘How do you feel?’ I say: ‘Good.’ ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Do you want to play?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Okay, tomorrow you’re playing.’ He just dropped it on me like that. That was Emery, Emery was crazy (smile). So I go back to my room. I don’t say anything to my family, I don’t say anything to anyone. I keep it to myself, thinking: ‘I’m not going to put any more pressure on myself than that,’ because I was already dreaming about it the night before. I knew Thiago (Silva) was injured, but honestly, I didn’t think the coach was going to play me. I thought he might put Serge (Aurier) in the middle.”

Kimpembe: “It was sink or swim.”

“That was the moment I introduced myself to the general public. Nobody knew me. I had come through the academy, I was training with the first team, I wasn’t playing many matches. That’s when I was really given responsibility, being told: ‘You want to step into the big time? Here, now’s the moment.’ It was sink or swim. I took responsibility and showed that I was capable of…”

Kimpembe was thrown into the deep end almost all of a sudden, even though he had already played in Ligue 1 and shown some potential. Unai Emery’s decision was not random. It was still a bold call, with a relatively inexperienced player facing some of the best attackers in the world. As Luis Enrique has pointed out several times since arriving at PSG, age and experience matter less than footballing quality.

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The Paris academy product got his chance and seized it perfectly. That match was a springboard in his career, and after that it became normal to see him play on the big stage with PSG. Of course, it is not always possible to make such an impression right from the start. You have to be patient and keep going through difficulties. Hopefully, other players will follow Kimpembe’s path. There is also the example of Warren Zaïre-Emery (the 20-year-old midfielder), who has emerged since then and carved out a real long-term place in the professional squad. That, despite a more difficult spell last year.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.