Holding Midfield: What’s the plan for Paris Saint-Germain?

[Holding Midfield]

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French football is a pretty bizarre environment. Their national team doesn’t really need to be discussed: the Raymond Domenech era was a psychiatrist’s wet dream, and the failure of a hugely talented generation seems to have come about mainly because one man, Zinedine Zidane, retired. The oddities extend to their domestic game too, however. For one, despite France being one of the more established footballing nations, Ligue 1 has always been a substandard league. Between them, French clubs have only ever won one European Cup – when Marseille beat AC Milan in 1993, and even they were banned from competing the next year, when a match-fixing scandal emerged. The more puzzling thing about French football is just how little the capital means to its game. It’s not rare for provincial clubs to dominate, but the way Paris has been sidelined takes it a bit far. The capital has just two clubs, Paris Saint-Germain and Paris FC, since their split in 1972. The latter have spent most of their time in the amateur leagues, while PSG have only ever won the top flight twice, even though they have had some heavy backing at times – not least when Canal+, the French [...]

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