PSG’s Achraf Hakimi Reaches Career-Best Form with 7 Goals, 14 Assists

Hakimi impresses with his endurance and performances. This season, PSG’s tireless Moroccan defender has achieved the best statistics of his career: 7 goals and 14 assists in 57 matches across all competitions. Throughout the season, the Parisian number 2 has demonstrated his exceptional athletic qualities. From July 16, 2024, with the start of preparation for the Paris Olympics with Morocco, and perhaps until July 13 next year if PSG reaches the Club World Cup final, the 26-year-old player displays the same physical freshness and determination.

"Achraf is someone who wants to play every match and stay on the field for 90 minutes. He never wants to rest. I believe rest is a term that’s not part of his vocabulary (laughs). This season, he has still benefited from Luis Enrique’s management, which has allowed him to be fresher, more consistent. But we can talk about a high-level athlete when we see the energy he expends during a match," testifies Romain Saïss, his national team teammate, to Le Parisien. The Atlas Lion developed these qualities from a young age when he practiced sprinting at school, then athletics.

This season, the Moroccan international has made more than twenty sprints per match in the championship and is the fastest player in the Champions League with 36.9 km/h, tied with Erling Haaland and slightly ahead of Mbappé (36.4 km/h). He is also the fourth player to have covered the most distance during the competition with 177.3 km in 16 matches. At PSG, Hakimi is the most used player by Luis Enrique this season (46 matches, 3,895 minutes played), after Willian Pacho.

Performances that do not surprise Romain Saïss: "Achraf is conditioned like sprinters: he is slender, he’s very fast, he exudes a lot of power. In the national team, he’s always the fastest player during exercises. Inevitably, his qualities lead him to be attracted to the goal, he always wants to finish actions. But I think he has made progress in repeating defensive runs. He comes back faster. To chain matches as he does, without getting injured, proves a certain seriousness." Recently, the former Inter Milan player explained that "God gave (him) this cardio power and the ability to endure prolonged efforts."

But in addition to this gift of nature, the PSG defender does personal work to maintain his physical shape, with the help of a physical trainer, a nutritionist, and a physiotherapist. The Moroccan also practices boxing to improve his cardio. "Given the speed at which Achraf runs, he is obliged to keep his muscles alert. He works a lot on his hamstrings, on his quadriceps. He can’t have the same frequency of runs in training as during matches given the configuration of the sessions, so he has to organize individual sessions to maintain the pace physically and prepare his body for the effort. He manages that very well and if he is today the best in the world in his position, it’s not by chance," affirms Saïss.