For a rational mind, Paris-Saint-Germain arrives with some certainty in a Santiago-Bernabeu under construction, this Wednesday, March 9, before its round of 16 return from the Champions League. Between the convincing and almost badly paid victory of the first leg (1-0), a wobbly Real Madrid, a Kylian Mbappé whose departure seems less inevitable next summer and the beginning of consistency in the proposed game, the lights finally seem to be on. green this season.
In theory. Because, it is a bit of its charm, PSG can also stall without warning and maintain its legend of an elusive sporting object. On Saturday, the Parisians offered their side Mister Hyde with a defeat and an off topic against Nice in the league (0-1). As a good old-timer of the house, Edouard Cissé learned to love “this irrational club” or “we always wonder which banana peel we’re going to slip on and what’s going to happen to us? “.
In August 1997, the young midfielder had just joined the professional group and had a front row seat to the incredible episode of the fax. Suspended, his teammate Laurent Fournier nevertheless played the first leg of the preliminary round of the Champions League on the lawn of Steaua Bucharest. UEFA informed the Parisian management of this by said fax, but it was misplaced and therefore never read.
Green carpet and marabou
A heavy administrative ball of consequence, the initial defeat (3-2) turns into 3-0 on green carpet and condemns Paris to ridicule and exploit. “We are the laughingstock of Europeannounces at the time Claude Le Roy, the sports director to his players. All you have to do is take on the impossible challenge of qualifying. »
Message heard. On the return, the Parc des Princes saw one of its best nights with a 5-0 victory, as announced… by a marabout approached by Le Roy with the agreement of its president, Michel Denisot. That evening, a graceful Leonardo bids farewell to Paris as a player.
Twenty-five years later, the Brazilian has slipped into the bespoke suit of a sporting director of almost unlimited means. But, even owned by Qatar since 2011, PSG always manages to renew itself in terms of adventures. The humorist Julien Cazarre thanks his team of heart for providing him with inexhaustible material for his chronicles on RMC or France Soccer. “PSG is a guy who bought the most expensive suit and shoes, but always ends up walking in shit. »
Very colorful, the theory is based on a few recent examples. The most famous goes back to the entry of the word “remontada” in the Larousse with this elimination against Barcelona in 2017 (6-1) when the odds certified 100% qualification after the Parc recital (4-0) at the ‘go. “Our great strength is that we always manage to renew ourselvescontinues Cazarre. In 2020, we are finally going to the Champions League final, but it is the first to be played in an empty stadium because of the Covid. And better, we lost it against Bayern Munich because of a headed goal from a player trained with us [Kinglsey Coman] and who normally never marks the head. »
PSG would even have a Buster Keaton side with a consummate art of gadin. “Since his debut in 1970, he has made the show the condition of his existence. However, a show is a beginning, a middle and a fall. develops Thibaud Leplat, philosopher and author ofHere is Paris (Solar, 2014). Following him, the supporter would have internalized this sense of burlesque. “He waits and dreads the new adventure with this grandiose side in the lose… PSG is still a teenager club. At this age, we experience victories and defeats more intensely, like our first cigarette or our first heartbreak. »
An age when we also make films. When UEFA announces relocating the C1 final from Saint Petersburg to the Stade de France due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, PSG lovers phosphorize on social networks on how their team will be able to miss this last march, almost at home. Edouard Cissé observed this propensity for defeatism. “When I was talking to supporters at the start of the season, they should have been very confident with the arrivals of Messi, Ramos, Wijnaldum, but no, they said to me”it is not possible otherwise, something is going to happen to us again”. »
“A club of high rollers”
By dint of mockery and failures in the Champions League, some have ended up convincing themselves that supporting the team of Messi, Mbappé and Neymar would be a priesthood. “Yes, we complain when we have never won so muchadmits Sylvain, 38 and therefore old enough to have seen Amara Diané save PSG from a descent into Ligue 2 in 2008. The problem with Qatar is that when you win, it’s normal, but as soon as you lose, you look like idiots, new rich people who do anything… And sometimes, this is not wrong. »
The supporter cites the recent telenovela episode between Mauro Icardi and his wife (and agent), Wanda Nara. “We still gave him three days to try to recover his wife who had dumped him on Instagram”, he said. Since then, the Argentinian has found his wife and his bench. “He had a problem that all of us can know. He was in no condition to play.” defended Leonado in a recent interview with The Team.
But when Ander Herrera, player with a very “employee of the month” profile, is the victim, in October 2021, of an improbable theft at a red light in the middle of the Bois de Boulogne by a transvestite, we say to ourselves that the PSG maintains its reputation. “The Qataris are trying to make it respectable, to make it an institution, but it retains the subversive and messy side of its beginnings, when it was founded against the institutions of French football by Daniel Hechter and the band of “pink shirts” », unfolds Thibaud Leplat.
For Julien Cazarre, his club merges with his city or at least with a certain idea of Paris, more showbiz and glitter than suburbs and blue blouses. “Sociologically, PSG has never been a working-class club, but a gambler’s club, assures the comedian. In the 1970s, it’s nothing at all but the guys want to bring Pelé. They had no doubts. Without realizing it, the Qataris respect this tradition by recruiting a guy like Neymar. »
Flamboyant, fickle and annoying, the former Barça – with his ups, downs and his assumed hedonism – would embody Paris, “this southern city stuck in northern Europe”, advance Leplat. “PSG is a Latin club, he continues. These are the laughter and the tears, the permanent spectacle. He doesn’t know how to do otherwise. But that’s also how you seduce an audience, and not with a balanced balance sheet at the end of the year. It’s his story, it’s the story given by the media and the habits acquired over the years. »
With Paris-Saint-Germain, you have to expect everything. And why not to a controlled match and a qualification without shaking in Madrid? This is also what dreaming bigger is.
