Squabbling about which superclub gets to further enrich the Paris superstar is wearisome but he could do so much betterEurope, several years from now. A thin light strains through the cracked and grimy window. The air is gritty with smoke. The man wakes. He is stiff, cold, tired, afraid. Outside is devastation, the city in ruins. Everyone has fled. Even the sirens sound more distant now. With a trembling hand, the man withdraws his phone from his pocket. He must be sparing with the battery, he knows, but awkwardly he turns it on.Perhaps this morning there will be signal. Perhaps this morning he will find out how far the crisis extends. The screen flickers. He hears the low ping before...
The French champions resemble a luxury store, full of high-end goods no one can afford and lacking togetherness and spiritParis Saint-Germain can make you sad. In the recent defeat by Bayern Munich we saw none of the class this team should display given their players. On one hand it was a disappointment; on the other it wasn’t a surprise because PSG’s early exit from the Champions League happens all the time.Only in 2020 have the club reached the final. In that unique season, two German and two French clubs contested the semi‑finals, largely because the English and Spanish clubs had not played for a few weeks and were not in the rhythm of the competition, nor in training. This year,...
Centre-forward whose goal knocked England out of the World Cup is often overlooked while all eyes are on Kylian MbappéI heard someone say recently that the France forward Olivier Giroud, their new record goalscorer, “deserves his flowers”. He does. Before each game for France at this World Cup, all eyes are on Kylian Mbappé, the star who has scored five goals in five games, but the impact of Giroud, who has four in four, flies under the radar. In the buildup to England’s 2-1 loss to France the story was the same: will Kyle Walker be the player to stop Mbappé? How effective is Mbappé going to be able to be?This matches a narrative that has stuck with Giroud throughout...
Absurdly wealthy owners with scant regard for the game placating absurdly remunerated players – is this really football?Was there a moment, back in August, when Christophe Galtier wondered what the fuss had been? Did he watch his Paris Saint-Germain team smacking in 21 goals in their first four games of the season and think how easy this all was? Take what is probably the starriest forward line in the history of the game, let them play and watch the brilliant goals stack up. Lionel Messi, after a disappointing first season in Paris, was re-energised. Neymar, playing alongside his mate, was thriving. And Kylian Mbappé …Well, what was Mbappé? He was still impossibly quick. He scored four goals in those first...
Mbappé staying in Paris has angered Real Madrid and La Liga but PSG argue the eye-watering numbers add up in their favourSo whose side are you on in the fallout following Kylian Mbappé’s decision to stay with Paris Saint-Germain? Watching the extraordinary outrage in Spain, with the press accusing the Frenchman of lacking class and La Liga branding the deal as “scandalous”, has raised eyebrows. But not as many as PSG being able to stump up a €200m-plus package for the world’s best player – despite making a €224m loss last year.There are no good guys here, only a gnawing unease that the laws of economic gravity are being defied to the further detriment of the game we love. As...