PSG and Paris continue as usual after Lyon victory

It is pointless to visit a city and draw broad conclusions from a passing visit. It happened in Paris a few weeks ago, after the terrorist attacks. The vogue was to visit the city for a couple of days, write something dreamy and lyrical, and take the praise and retweets for what was inevitably called ‘brave’ or ‘poignant’ writing, as if it is some achievement to exploit the grief of people. As if it is a great challenge to make something so utterly and obviously horrendous seem sad when it is written down. Of course it is horrendous, so there was no justification in going to ghoulishly wax egotistical on the deaths of people to hoover up clicks. Actually going to a city and speaking to people, and not then forcing some poetic or heavy-handed feeling onto the whole thing, was beyond most at the time.

It’s a mixture of the incredible sentimentalism of the internet, and the lack of nuance in public discourse. Nothing can be left unsaid or kept understated, in a way that might actually make real emotion understood and felt. That’s why the Premier League decided to barge in with its own minute’s silence the weekend after the one observed at Wembley. At Wembley, it was appreciated by the French, and was an appropriate gesture. In the Premier League, it was about the organisation itself demonstrating its self-importance. We are the Premier League, you must know how we feel, as if Paris and France was just waiting for the tribute before it could move on. So it was with some of the comment reporting. I am a comment writer, you must know how I feel about a tragedy that has nothing to do with me. Of all the events over the last year, surely this one was something that did not to be tortured under the gaze of solipsism. Dignity, always dignity.

Nevertheless, the city has clearly gone through a traumatic experience, and it is only starting to settle down again now. The extreme, but understandable reactions to false alarms, and false alarms themselves, have receded from the news and from the forefront of the news. Initially at least some in the city found it hard to adjust. Aurelie Nadal explained, “Personally the first two weeks were the hardest, I was paranoid I have to admit, and judging by other people’s faces in the tube or in the streets I could say we were all pretty much in the same state.“

Another Parisian, Denis, noted that time has changed things, “It’s a bit more scary now to live in a big City like Paris after the attacks,” but he quickly felt that, “everything is back to normal now.”

Partly because the terrorist attack targeted the French friendly against Germany at the Stade de France, there has been a heightened security presence for the Paris Saint-Germain games that have followed. Unsurprisingly, this has been met with patience by the fans, says Nadal. “The thing that changed is the security, it takes you forever to enter the stadium but as far as I know no one is complaining it’s for our own safety”. At the first game after the attack, there was a tribute put on at Parc des Prince, PSG’s ground, but the following matches have seen a return to normal in most aspects of the game.

At the weekend, PSG moved 17 points clear at the top of Ligue 1 after their easy 5-1 victory over Lyon. Lyon had briefly seemed like they would be the main challengers for PSG, even if they wouldn’t actually ever come close to real competition, such is the advantage PSG now have over every other club. They reinforced in the summer, and are now even stronger than in the 2014/15 season, when they impressed in Europe, particularly against Barcelona and Chelsea, and when they strolled to another league championship.

This summer saw the arrival of Kevin Trapp and Angel Di Maria. Trapp has only really impressed Rihanna so far this season. While that is more important an achievement than anything to do with football, PSG and their fans probably don’t see it that way. Di Maria, however, has settled in far better. Having absolutely not wanted to be at Manchester United, and having made zero effort while he was there, he is much improved, and Lucas Moura is now an excellent option to be used when necessary, rather than a first-team first choice. Not that it really matters, of course. Their squad was already miles ahead of everyone else, their financial doping rendering the competition entirely joyless at the top of the table, as it is in Scotland and Germany. This season is really about two things for the club. One, how they fare in Europe. And two, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, because it’s always about him to some extent.

In Europe, they have done as well as might be expected. They qualified for the knockout rounds, and given their momentum compared to Chelsea’s struggles, they are favourites to progress to the quarter-finals, and if they don’t they should and will feel like they have failed. Basically, PSG’s job from now until the end of the season is to not end up merde creek, and try to become a proper European side, rather than just a very good French one.

Ibrahimovic, however, has more to do. He has to decide if he wishes to stay in Ligue 1, and the owners of the club have to decide if they would like to keep him. With the rumours that make it clear that Cristiano Ronaldo is weighing up a move to Old Trafford or Parc des Princes, it might not be a decision that he is able to make until Ronaldo makes his. “He is indeed the most important signing, the one to put spotlight on us, the one to give actual credibility to our project, the one to attract more viewers,” says Nadal. Ronaldo would be the natural replacement in that regard, and in others.

Nevertheless, it is a measure of PSG’s ambition and progress that some fans would see Ronaldo’s arrival as a disappointment. One PSG fan, Luis Rabes, wanted the club to aim for the ‘younger and hungrier’ Neymar, a player who would improve with the club, rather than just improve the club in his later years.

Ibrahimovic is currently racking up the scoring records for the side, most recently becoming their top league scorer ever. There have been games over the last few years where it would only be Ibrahimovic who was able to make the difference, using his exceptional strength to seemingly lift defenders out of his path as he jogged towards goal, or turned up at a vital time to score equalisers or winners. Those times might have declined, but they have certainly not disappeared. With an increase in the quality of the squad, he needs to do less. WIth age and early-season injuries, he is also physically incapable of doing it quite so often. When he joined, he found the ideal platform to secure his reputation in the highlights across Europe, but also made a huge contribution - exactly what Ronaldo, in his thirties, might decide he wants as he winds down too.

France also found itself with a decision to make before the match against Lyon. The Front National had looked ready to succeed in much of the second round of regional elections. The first round saw Marine Le Pen’s Front National continue their increasing prominence. Thankfully, the second round saw her soundly defeated, even if the supposedly moderate socialist and right-wing parties don’t enthuse oppressed groups in France.

The weeks after the attacks have inevitably seen some complex fallout. There had been a further fracturing between the liberal left, the far left, Muslims, feminists, and the centre-right and far-right (obviously Muslims and feminists are not totally separate political entities, but they have been treated as such at times in the discussions). How to respond to the situation in modern France has seen a discussion on civil rights, civil liberties, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, foreign policy, capitalism, socialism and many other factors, all of which are intertwined. Denis believed that it was not just the attacks which were behind the Front National’s ascent in the first round of regional elections: “I think there is a link between the rise of the FN in the elections of the past 10 or 15 years and the rise of Islamophobia in France but it’s not the only reason for me. I think that the difficult economic situation, the important unemployment rate, the disillusion in our politicians’ skills and the certain feeling of insecurity in part of the population (especially in the countryside) are the most important reasons.”

So it was, with the crushing of the FN - with obvious caveats - that many PSG and Lyon fans went to the game, cheered by telling themselves that the French were really unimpeachable people. Obviously there would be some disheartened fascists, in reasonable numbers, but there’s no need to have sympathy for them. But that would probably be the only shared sentiment between PSG and Lyon. With Marseille imploding pre- and post-Marcelo Bielsa, Lyon were seen as the likeliest rivals for the league. Alhough Lyon were tipped to start brightly this season, they have rapidly faded.

Their best player is probably the 35-year-old Steed Malbranque, who has enjoyed an exceptional resurgence following an unexplained season off after a move to St Etienne faltered a few years ago. Nabil Fekir, an exceptional talent, has a serious knee injury, and they no longer have Clinton Njie to assist. Yoann Gourcuff has left, too, and despite scoring, Alexandre Lacazette is, ‘clearly not happy,’ says Philippa Booth of French Football Weekly. Claudio Beauvue promised a great deal when he arrived from Guingamp having scored 27 goals, but has only four so far. There is talk of ‘bitching and personal problems’ in the team. Add to that a once reliable defence that is, shattered,’ and you can guess how the match went. Booth believes that teams already visit the Parc des Princes with a “sense of crushing inevitability in the face of the PSG machine.” The difficulties with injuries, form and personnel all contributed to a convincing 5-1 defeat.

While many in the city are clearly still affected by the terrorist attacks carried out in the name of ISIS, the people, their club and its fans have returned almost to normal as life, and Ligue 1, continues. The city continues to be largely the same as it was before, and the side continue to dominate the league and bore neutral observers despite their apparent progress against a backdrop of a misfiring rivals. They will have to wait for their matches against Chelsea to measure how far they have really come after their latest round of investment.