Paris St. Germain have been crowned French champions ahead of schedule. The title win is historic for the club and the league – and yet makes hardly anyone happy.
For AS St. Etienne, this season could be a doubly bitter one. The traditional club, which is in a relegation battle, could fall back into the second division after 17 years. And, perhaps even more significant from a historical point of view: “Les Verts” are, it is already clear, no longer the sole French record champions after almost 50 years in this role.
The capital club’s bland 1-1 draw with RC Lens on Saturday night made it the tenth championship in the club’s history – the eighth since the Qatar entry – with just four matchdays to go. That means PSG are now level with St Etienne, who won their last title in 1981.
Great mood of celebration does not want to arise
But despite the historic success in Paris, the big celebratory mood will be hard to come by. Significantly, when Neymar converted a penalty directly in front of the visitors’ block in the away game at promoted Clermont a few weeks ago, the PSG fans sitting behind him reacted as if a set-up pass between two centre-backs had just succeeded. Namely, not at all.
Even in the decisive match, it remained eerily quiet for long stretches in the Prinzenpark, and there was no real celebration of the triumph after the final whistle.
After the top-class reinforcements of the past summer, anything less than the championship would have been downright embarrassing, the focus was on the Champions League from the beginning anyway – and there the star ensemble failed in a dramatic way against Real Madrid. It was not even enough for the French Cup after losing a penalty shoot-out against OGC Nice.
A title in a flash
The Ligue 1 title, on the other hand, was almost a walkover for coach Mauricio Pochettino’s team. Stars like Neymar were regularly spared, Messi swam along rather than dominated – and goalkeepers Gianluigi Donnarumma and Keylor Navas took turns as if they were preparation games. Which, in the end, they were before the Champions League appearances.
No competition to speak of and a succession of late goals
Unlike the previous season, there was no competition to speak of: defending champions Lille OSC slumped into mediocrity after last year’s sensational title, partly due to the departure of champion coach Christophe Galtier. The northern French side had a total of 83 points in 2020/21, while Olympique Marseille are currently the first PSG “chaser” with 62 points. After last weekend’s 2-1 defeat of OM, the PSG season was effectively over.
The success in the top match was something of a mirror image of the entire PSG season: the team rarely shone as their names would suggest, but they won their matches in the end. Especially against the supposedly small teams of Ligue 1, against whom there had regularly been inexplicable lapses in the pre-season, Paris now remained serious. This was a major asset in the sometimes lethargic games: PSG scored a winning goal after the 86th minute five times alone, including four times between Matchday 6 and Matchday 12. After that, the lead over the inconsistent rest of the league was already too big to allow any excitement to emerge.
A last farewell from Mbappé?
The only thing left for PSG to win this season is the goalscoring crown for Kylian Mbappé, who tops the list ahead of Wissam Ben Yedder (AS Monaco) and Martin Terrier (Stade Rennes). A final farewell for the striker courted by Real Madrid? Without the difference-maker of this PSG season, for whom sporting director Leonardo is still desperately fighting, the club could be facing upheaval.
In the long run, however, AS St Etienne will probably have to say goodbye to the – shared – title of record champions. It would be an end with a long announcement. Like Mbappé?
