Paris Saint-Germain

French Fancies: Nice work, Le Mans race downwards, PSG au revoir to Becks

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rct

Our last look of the season at French football takes in ups and downs and (tenuous) Sunderland links at both ends of the table …


The poster for Jonny Wilkinson’s Toulon rugby club at the nearby Toulon-Hyères airport gives you an idea of which shape of ball matters most in the area Monsieur Salut calls home. Winners of the Heineken cup in Dublin (against Clermont) and this coming weekend in the French championship cup final against Castres. Wilkinson, who just keeps on scoring match after match, has become a local hero.

But another thirtysomething English sportsman in France has been prominent in the French press. As everyone knows, David Beckham was warmly received for his short sojourn at Paris Saint-Germain and, after neither disgracing himself nor covering himself in glory in his relatively limited playing time, has now retired. Le Journal du Dimanche wished him well but could not resist mentioning that he’d made “only two decisive passes” in his PSG career.

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French Fancies: how L’Equipe saw Liverpool’s demolition of Newcastle

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Toon disaster seen as French disaster
Toon disaster seen as French disaster


Salut! Sunderland is, of course, a gloat-free zone. We recognise that no mature Newcastle United supporter ever mocked Sunderland after the 7-1 defeat at Everton, 7-2 at Chelsea or indeed 5-1 at St James’ Park.

So, not least in the knowledge that bad results lie ahead for us as well as them given the nature of football, there is no specific intention to rub salt in the wounds of yesterday’s mauling by Jordan Henderson and Liverpool of the Mags.

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French Fancies: Newcastle 0 SAFC 3 un show unique, says L’Equipe

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No need to translate: for L'Equipe, it was 'une victoire amplement méritée'
No need to translate: for L’Equipe, it was ‘une victoire amplement méritée’

It is not often that a Sunderland game features so prominently in the French press. Even though the sports daily, L’Equipe, covers the Premier League reasonably well, you can guess which teams dominate their columns.

Today is different. Paolo Di Canio’s exuberant celebration of each goal at St James’ Park gets the generous illustration you see and is then described in full in the text.

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French Fancies: the shame/la honte of PSG. Allez Steed and OL

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Jake: l'artist
Jake: l’artist

Very soon, Steed Malbranque and his mates will kick off for L’Olympique Lyonnais at Stade Brestois.

Sadly, only an 11-0 win would take Lyon back to the top of Ligue 1, but any win would at least put them on equal points with Paris Saint-Germain. (Update: they didn’t score 11, managing only a 1-1 draw)

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French Fancies: Beckham’s PSG flick and Toure’s sensational Brest dive

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Jake: l'artist
Jake: l’artist

A booming burst of Hey Jude, the familiar broad Essex smile and a clever flicked pass to helped Ménez set up the second Paris Saint-Germain goal, off the knee of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, otherwise poor to the extent of being whistled at by his own fans, are on French lips today.

But David Beckham’s debut for PSG, big an event as it deemed to be on both sides of the Channel, was not for me the most memorable feature of the Ligue 1 weekend.

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French Fancies: wonderful climax for Montpellier. PSG denied, hurrah

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Jake: l'artist

Like many others who watch French football, I have a soft spot for Auxerre. Not just because I love Burgundy, but because the football team – they were managed for 36 years by the same man, Guy Roux – seemed for so long a stable fixture of the French game.

Tonight I found it in my heart to loathe them, before remembering that even if a team has a big toerag element within its support – fill in the missing letters in M***w**l or L***s or C**d*f* – it is necessarily a toerag club.

With their barrages of tennis balls and toilet paper, a significant minority of Auxerre fans to be known from now on as la racaille or les voyous twice stopped the game against Montpellier. This could have swayed the outcome of the championship since all matches kicked off the at the same time. The effect on Montpellier players’ nerves must have been unbearable.

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