PSG preferred a flop to this future star

Jérémy Jacquet will leave Stade Rennais to join Liverpool this summer. The central defender may have been retained in Ligue 1 if Paris Saint-Germain had believed in him from his early days in the Paris region.

According to Le Parisien, Khaled Gaarba, a former recruiter for Rennes, discovered Jacquet at the U13 level of RC Joinville. “When I first saw him in Joinville, there weren’t many clubs interested in him,” he said. The young player showed technical skill and interesting athletic qualities, but PSG, also monitoring the situation, preferred to bet on Sékou Doucouré. “Jacquet had qualities but seemed less technically gifted,” explained a former member of the Parisian team. As a result, Stade Rennais developed the talent and sold him to Liverpool for 72 million euros including bonuses, leaving the capital club with some regrets and a player who hasn’t shone as brightly.

The costly choice for PSG

Three years before Jacquet, Sékou Doucouré joined the Parisian academy in 2016 and trained with Mbappé and Messi. However, his career has not progressed much, and he turned professional at FC Nantes in 2024. According to Le Parisien, he has only played three Ligue 1 matches with the Canaries, including just one this season. This is a striking example of the difficulty in evaluating the potential of very young players and the risk a club takes when it overlooks a talent like Jacquet.