#FFXIV #PSG
Showing posts with label psg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psg. Show all posts
FFXIV Misadventures: Make It Rain 2026...at the UEFA Champions League Final!
#FFXIV #UCLFinal #AllezParis #IciCestParis #BackToBack
Paris Saint-Germain: 2026 UEFA Champions League Winners
Paris retained their European title on penalties after a 1-1 draw against Arsenal in the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League final at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest.
Marseille dared to challenge PSG but the empire has struck back in style
To understand Marseille’s season, you need not watch all of their games; those played against PSG will suffice. After Marseille’s 1-0 win over the European champions in September – their first at the Vélodrome in the league in 14 years – the word “finally” was the word scrawled across the front page of local paper La Provence. That victory brought relief, but also hope and optimism: the Empire could be toppled. But it struck back on Sunday night.
Paris Saint-Germain: 2025 FIFA Intercontinental Cup Champions
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Paris Saint-Germain ended a banner year on a high as they defeated CF Flamengo 2-1 in a penalty shootout to win the FIFA Intercontinental Cup™ after a 1-1 draw in regulation. It has been an incredible 2025 for Luis Enrique's men, who won a treble in the 2024/25 season, including their first UEFA Champions League title.
Paris Saint-Germain: 2024-25 UEFA Champions League Winners
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Paris Saint-Germain are the 24th different champions in European Cup history following a record-breaking 5-0 victory over Inter in the UEFA Champions League final in Munich.
Key moments
12': Hakimi turns in from close range
20': Doué rounds off rapid Paris counter
63': Doué drills into the bottom corner
73': Kvaratskhelia finishes low into the net
87': Mayulu smashes in record-breaking fifth
Match in brief: Doué double helps Paris blow Inter away
Inter had trailed for only 17 minutes of their 14-game campaign prior to the final, but it did not take long for them to fall behind on this occasion. Vitinha picked the first lock with a perfectly-weighted pass for Désiré Doué, who in turn showed silky skill to square for Hakimi to convert from close range against his former club.
Ousmane Dembélé provided the silver-service assist on 20 minutes, racing clear down the left before checking back on the edge of the penalty area to locate Doué. The 19-year-old needed one touch with his chest to take control and another with his right foot to fire in a shot which deflected in off Federico Dimarco.
The Nerazzurri settled as the half wore on but had only off-target headers from Francesco Acerbi and Marcus Thuram to show for their efforts.
Though there was renewed vigour from Simone Inzaghi's side after the break, it was Les Rouge-et-Bleu who once again had the creative and clinical edge. It was Vitinha's turn to drive decisively from midfield just after the hour, exchanging passes with Dembélé before sliding through for Doué to drill emphatically into the bottom right of the goal.
It was a different corner but the same result ten minutes later, Dembélé laying on his second assist of the night for Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who fired low into the net.
Gianluigi Donnarumma pulled off a stunning save to keep out Thuram but there was still time for Senny Mayulu to apply the record-breaking flourish. Mayulu, also 19, combined neatly with fellow replacement Bradley Barcola before smashing a powerful strike in off a post. Paris had secured the biggest-ever margin of victory in a European Cup final.
PlayStation® Player of the Match: Désiré Doué (Paris)
"Two goals and an assist in a UEFA Champions League final at the age of only 19 is incredible. He played with unbelievable maturity, was very generous in laying up Hakimi for his goal and also worked very hard in defence."
UEFA Technical Observer Group
Alex Clementson, Paris reporter
A commanding first-half performance morphed into one of blissful attacking endeavour in the second. An incisive, inspired showing from Paris, and one which makes history for more reasons than one. It's an occasion that will live long in the memory for those inside this stadium, regardless of allegiance. There have been tears of pain, they're now flowing in joy. Congratulations Paris!
Vieri Capretta, Inter reporter
Paris were impressive throughout, with the Nerazzurri unable to get anywhere near their best level. From beginning to end, Paris were superior technically, physically and tactically. A well-deserved win for Luis Enrique's men.
Reaction
Désiré Doué, Player of the Match: “I have no words. That was just incredible for me, simply incredible."
Gianluigi Donnarumma, Paris goalkeeper: "We were almost out a few times during the season, then we managed to progress and completed an extraordinary season. Our coach gave us the freedom, kept us calm. This is his philosophy. He prepared the final in the best possible way, and we saw that.".
Rio Ferdinand, TNT Sports
"Paris dominated it – they suffocated them and pressed them. From the word go, they pressed the life out of them and they had players that were in killer mode today. It’s an astonishing performance in a game of this magnitude. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such dominance at this stage."
Key stats
Doué and Mayulu are only the third and fourth teenagers to score in a UEFA Champions League final, after Patrick Kluivert in 1995 and Carlos Alberto in 2004.
No team had ever won a European Cup final by more than a four-goal margin prior to this.
Doué is the first player to score twice in a final since Gareth Bale for Real Madrid against Liverpool in 2018, and the eighth to do so in the Champions League era.
Luis Enrique is the seventh coach to win the European Cup with multiple teams, having also guided Barcelona to glory in 2015.
Hakimi is the first Moroccan to score in a European Cup final.
Paris have played 99 Champions League matches since they were involved in a 0-0 draw (vs Real Madrid, 2015/16 group stage).
Inter had trailed for just 17 minutes of their entire 14-game campaign prior to the final.
All four European Cup finals in Munich have produced a first-time winner.
Line-ups
Paris: Donnarumma; Hakimi, Marquinhos, Pacho, Nuno Mendes (Hernández 78); João Neves (Zaïre-Emery 84), Vitinha, Fabián Ruiz (Mayulu 84); Kvaratskhelia (Gonçalo Ramos 84), Dembélé, Doué (Barcola 66)
Inter: Sommer; Pavard (Bisseck 53; Darmian 62), Acerbi, Bastoni; Dumfries, Barella, Hakan Çalhanoglu (Asllani 70), Mkhitaryan (Augusto 62), Dimarco (Zalewski 53); Lautaro Martínez, Thuram
FFXIV Misadventures: Special Episode: The Champions Hunt
#FFXIV #AllezParis #UCLFinal #ChampionsLeague #IciCestParis
A Complicated Situation In Paris
Paris FC: Challenging the status quo in the French capital
Paris is not only a cultural hub in Europe but it’s also a hub for sporting talent.
FotMob - March 18, 2025, 6:36 AM
By Ben Bocsák
It’s on the streets of Paris where some of the finest footballers of the modern generation had learned their trades.
At the 2022 Qatar World Cup, nine different national teams had at least one player in their squad who was born in Paris. The French national team had 11.
When it comes to football clubs, Paris Saint Germain is the dominant team in the region. They have won eight league titles in the last decade and continue to attract some of the world’s biggest stars.
Their status at the pinnacle of French football looks uncontested at the moment but a noisy ‘neighbour’ in Paris FC is looking to knock them off their perch in the near future.
For a short period of time Paris FC and Paris Saint Germain had been one and the same after a merger in the 1970s. But this was short-lived. A bitter split occurred in 1972 when Paris’ mayor had an issue with the club being situated in the suburbs of Paris in Saint Germain-en-Laye.
The results of this saw Paris FC remain its status in the first division and hosting matches in the Parc des Princes meanwhile Paris Saint Germain were relegated to the third division.
This would prove to be bittersweet for the former. Paris FC struggled to maintain their competitiveness in the top-flight and were relegated just two seasons after the split. Coincidentally, the same season Paris FC were relegated, Paris Saint Germain were promoted to the top-flight having been buoyed by a new drive and determination to get back to ‘where they belong.’
Ultimately, this saw Paris Saint Germain reseize the Parc des Princes and their status as Paris’ ‘top’ football club.
Meanwhile, Paris FC have been cast into the shadows ever since. A brief foray in the top-flight offered some hope in the 1979/80 season but they were immediately relegated back to Ligue 2.
The subsequent decades have brought little hope for Paris FC. The club has spent most of the 1980s and 1990s in the third and fourth divisions of France playing in semi-professional and amateur leagues.
Since the 2000s though, Paris FC have started to emerge as a force again by investing in young players.
Instead of focusing on the first team, Paris FC has built one of the best developmental academies in France, harnessing the talent of the city.
Over the last decade Paris FC has produced the likes of Ibrahima Konaté, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Mathys Tel, Manu Koné, Loïc Badé, Axel Disasi and Nordi Mukiele who have all gone on to play at the very highest level of the game.
The money brought in through development transfer fees has given Paris FC a new resurgence.
In 2014/15, the club earned promotion back to Ligue 2 and have remained there ever since and this season they look to return back to the top flight since 1980.
But it’s off the pitch where the most interesting changes have occurred.
Earlier this season France’s wealthiest man Bernard Arnault bought a majority 52.4% stake in the club. He is the CEO of LVMH and has an estimated net worth of $170.8 billion according to Forbes. Alongside him, minority investors Red Bull have also put a 10.6% stake in the club and have added Paris FC to their extensive portfolio that includes the likes of RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg and New York Red Bulls.
Red Bull’s football CEO, Jürgen Klopp, is also involved in the project and he has recently been spotted attending games in Paris.
Together the investment group has set some lofty ambitions.
In the press conference announcing his acquisition of the club last year Arnault even opened the doors to Paris FC bringing back former player Ibrahima Konaté in the future.
When asked about the possibility, he replied:
“The idea is to train young people, then, if a former member of the club’s training team wants to come and form the backbone of the club, why not?
“It’s a possibility, but not the group’s basic strategy.”
Since then, Paris FC have also announced that from next season the club will be in very close proximity to Paris Saint Germain.
They will be moving to the Stade Jean-Bouin, currently being used by the Stade Francais rugby team which is literally just across the street from Paris Saint Germain’s home of the Parc des Princes.
With the club currently in third place in Ligue 2, just one point off an automatic promotion place, there is a strong possibility Paris FC will return to Ligue 1 after a long hiatus.
They are playing some attractive football, averaging the fourth highest goals (1.6) and the most possession (60.8%) in the league.
But while the signs are promising, these are early days at Paris FC. At the moment only three teams have an older average squad age in Ligue 2 than Paris FC. This is the antithesis of the club’s future vision. With Red Bull involved and strong academy foundations in place, Paris FC will look to build a young team in the same mould as RB Leipzig or Red Bull Salzburg or perhaps even closer to home – the current Paris Saint Germain team.
The ultimately goal is to become a true contender again and to reignite a fierce rivalry that has been dormant in the shadows for decades. If successful, Paris FC can challenge Paris Saint Germain’s hegemony and completely transform the landscape of French football.
These are lofty ambitions but with Arnault, Red Bull and Klopp involved – anything is possible.
Paris Saint-Germain: 2023-24 Coupe De France Winners
Paris Saint-Germain beat Lyon 2-1 in the French Cup final on Saturday to end the season with a domestic treble in Kylian Mbappé's last game for the club.
The Ligue 1 and French Super Cup champions dominated the first half at Lille's Stade Pierre-Mauroy to secure their record-extending 15th Cup title and first since 2021.
Ousmane Dembélé put PSG ahead after 23 minutes when Nuno Mendes' cross found him unmarked in the six-yard box to coolly head home, and Fabio Ruiz doubled the advantage with a strike from a tight angle at the second attempt.
Lyon pulled one back 10 minutes into the second half thanks to Jake O'Brien's towering header off a corner before PSG keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma produced a superb save minutes later.
PSG's all-time top scorer Mbappé failed to find the net in his final game for the club, leaving his record at 256 goals in 308 appearances over his seven-year spell.
"You feel a bit more the weight of things because you realize that it's really over," Mbappé told broadcaster beIN Sports. "When I said goodbye to the Parc des Princes, there were still some games left, so you are still focused on what awaits you.
"Now, I have nothing left with PSG. But I'm very happy to have been able to finish with a trophy.
"I'm happy to have been part of its history and to have made it a bit."
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned violence ahead of the final as Lyon and PSG supporters clashed on a highway leading to Stade Pierre-Mauroy a few hours before kick-off.
Supporters threw flares and windows were smashed on buses full of supporters. The local prefecture said police had "quickly put an end" to the clashes. In a post on X, it also confirmed buses had been damaged.
Information from Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Paris Saint-Germain: 2022 Trophee des Champions Winners
Messi stars as PSG beat Nantes in Trophée des Champions
Publish on 31/07/2022 at 21:54 - S. TELFORD
Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr. and Sergio Ramos were on target as Paris Saint-Germain beat FC Nantes 4-0 in to lift the Trophée des Champions in Israel.
Paris Saint-Germain 4-0 FC Nantes
THE MATCH
PSG were without suspended superstar Kylian Mbappé for this meeting at Tel Aviv's Bloomfield Stadium, but Christophe Galtier packed enough talent into what looks to be becoming his preferred 3-4-1-2 formation. Achraf Hakimi had the first chance of the game early on after neat interplay in the Nantes box, but his shot was well saved by Alban Lafont (5'). Marquinhos then rattled Lafont's crossbar with a header following a Messi corner as les Canaris held on (14'). Nantes looked capable of hitting PSG on the break, and Gigi Donnarumma had to be on his toes to keep a curling Ludovic Blas attempt out from the edge of the area (19'). Paris took charge of the game soon after, though, with Messi sitting Lafont down with his left foot before firing high into his goal with his right (22'). Neymar then shaved the far post before the flag went up for offside against him (40'), but he found the target in first half injury-time, steering home a fine free-kick for 2-0 (45+5').
PSG pull clear
Evann Guessand (50') and Messi (53') exchanged chances before Ramos made it 3-0 inside the hour. Pablo Sarabia forced a save from Lafont and Ramos reacted quickest, bagging his 130th career goal an exquisite backheel - not bad for a centre-back (59')! Former PSG coach Antoine Kombouaré tried to change things up, sending Samuel Moutoussamy and new arrival Mostafa Mohamed into the fray (64') and switching to a 4-2-3-1 system having initially mirrored PSG's three-man defence, but damage minimalisation was all Nantes had left in them. Juan Bernat - who had himself come on for Nuno Mendes (68') - fired into the outside side-netting after being slipped through by Neymar (77'). Nordi Mukiele then replaced Hakimi, coming on for his PSG debut having joined this week from RB Leipzig (78') before Neymar made it four from the penalty spot (82') - Jean-Charles Castelletto sent off for the challenge on the Brazilian that led to the spot-kick. Lafont denied Messi a second late on (88') and it ended 4-0.
THE PLAYER: Lionel Messi
Messi was criticised last year during his maiden campaign in France after scoring just six Ligue 1 Uber eats goals, but he was quick to post photographs of his pre-season training regimen to his Instagram this summer, and he contributed two goals and an assist in PSG's recent friendly tour of Japan. The Argentine picked up where he left off here, orchestrating Paris's play throughout and was rewarded with his 32nd goal in a final.
THE STAT: 11
PSG have now won the Trophée des Champions a record 11 times - three more than next-best Olympique Lyonnais. Sunday's triumph was their first in two seasons, however, having lost to Galtier's previous employers LOSC in 2021 showpiece - although Jocelyn Gourvennec was les Dogues' coach by the time the sides met in Tel Aviv.
If You Were Xavi Simons...
This is based on a true story and a possible aftermath, which may or may not have happened.
Imagine, if you will, this situation. Here you are, an 18-year old boy who left Barcelona's academy, La Masia, for the green pastures of Paris Saint-Germain and to get an opportunity to play with one of the most famous Barcelona legends of all, the great Lionel Messi, as well as a made man of Paris, Kylian Mbappe, a World Cup winner and future star for Real Madrid.
The opponent is OGC Nice. The venue: the Parc des Princes, a venue that has been a part of the team's history since 1970. With 10 minutes left in a Round of 16 match in the Coupe de France, in front of a small audience so much as to suggest you would be forgiven for thinking it was a friendly, and a chance to face storied rivals Olympique de Marseille, you are called up to enter the pitch to replace Colin Dagba, who is of the PSG Academy fold and lives and breathes the club he started in.
No score through 90 minutes. By competition rules, the match goes to a penalty shootout. The seventh round of spot kicks arrives. Dante, a Bayern Munich name of the past, delivers a panenka past Gianluigi Donnarumma, who denied Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka to win a European championship last year for Italy. At long last, you are called to convert a spot kick to continue the arm-wrestle at Le Parc against a side bound for European competition, managed by Christophe Galtier, who has a history of impressive victories against Paris in the past.
But therein lies the rub: the goalkeeper for Nice is a Pole named Marcin Bulka, who is on loan from Paris Saint-Germain because of having too many goalkeepers available. He is not as adept with stopping shots. Surely, with all the hype, all the fanfare, one swing will be routine as usual, right?
You take the shot. Bulka saves and is surrounded by his Nice teammates in white. As you walk back to the squad in their dark jerseys and shots, you are consoled by Presnel Kimpembe, another FIFA World Cup winner. Your mind is shattered. You are reduced to tears. You feel like you want to be executed in front of all those you loved because you let them down. You regret leaving La Masia. All those tears were in vain. A massive part of you wants to die on this pitch, alone, helpless, like those who perished on the football pitch in the past.
Time passes. You wake up, you wonder to yourself, did that nightmare just happen? Did all that just happen? You sit on your bed, deep in thought, your eyes still red from the tears you shed after all you went through. You choose to pick up your cleats and your ball and return to the Camp des Loges to do something. At the back of your head, you know that you will be watching Paris and Real Madrid face each other from your television set. You do not expect to be called up. The rest of the players on international assignment will return with one goal in mind: save Paris Saint-Germain from being trophyless and maybe spare their manager the long-awaited sacking.
You place a ball on the penalty spot near a practice goal, and you look straight at it, and you concentrate for the longest period of time. In the distance, PSG's first team are doing warmups and drills, but you are by yourself, concentrating, staring straight at the goal and the ball and the ball and the goal. The trees in the background look on, awaiting your decision.
In another part of the playing surface. Lionel looks over, confused at what he is seeing, and then he remembers that once upon a time, he was in this situation as well. When he started out, he took his lumps. He missed penalties. He failed as well. But he was young, and he chose to motivate himself to do better and be better. So he nods and returns to his drills with the rest of the team.
As for you, you continue to stare at the goal and the ball placed on the spot. You remember in the back of your head all the moments great players missed penalties and how they rebounded to be the heroes they were, of the sport. The pictures of heartbreak. The scenes of redemption. The montage, placed over the goal and the ball on the spot.
You see these scenes and realize that you have to make a choice. You can choose to let that scene in the Parc des Princes define who you are for the rest of your life: a nobody, an overhyped, overrated Dutchman who no longer has love for the sport and life and years on is found in a situation he does not want to be: dead. Or you can choose to let that scene be the springboard for a comeback story that will take time to develop but can happen, maybe culminating in scoring a winning penalty for the Netherlands in the FIFA World Cup.
You may not be at this club much longer. Your contract ends in the summer and depending on whether or not your club replaces its manager and personnel, you could be finding a new team to play or return home to Barcelona, figuring that your Parisian adventure did not work out. Other clubs from other competitions will figure that you need some confidence in taking spot kicks and getting playing time in a new country, perhaps the USA and MLS, could be the solution.
All these intangibles, and understanding why each and every one of these dynamics happen, cause you to finally declare your final answer, which you will speak loudly with actions, and not just words.
Harding-Kerrigan 2.0: Did French soccer player mastermind attack?
When people talk about the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan mess, what often gets lost is that the scheme worked. Sort of.
Kerrigan was attacked by two men intent on boosting the Olympic chances of her U.S. teammate and figure-skating nemesis, Harding. (Harding later pleaded guilty to helping cover up the Keystone Kops plot.)
But though the story had been leading newscasts for weeks and most of the details were already public knowledge, Harding was still allowed to compete at Lillehammer 1994. For a moment there, despite everything, Harding could have come out on top.
It didn’t turn out that way. Harding busted a lace at the Winter Games, cried to the judges and finished eighth. Kerrigan finished second and got caught on a hot mic saying “This is so corny” as she was paraded through Disney World. Neither competed at the highest level again.
On one level, it’s a parable about the corrosive effects of aspiration and hubris.
But if you’re more a fan of Machiavelli than Aesop’s Fables, there’s another way of looking at it. That it wasn’t so much a colossally stupid idea (which it was) as a poorly executed one. Without drawing any direct parallels between the two events, that brings us to the curious case of the Paris Saint-Germain women’s soccer team.
PSG is the best team in the best women’s league in the world. Like its men’s counterpart, PSG Féminine is a lavishly funded super team constructed without regard to profit margins. The goal isn’t just winning. It is stockpiling as much talent as possible. That talent includes Canadians Ashley Lawrence, Stephanie Labbé and Jordyn Huitema.
Things didn’t totally work out for PSG last year, so the club went on a buying spree. One of its acquisitions was veteran midfielder Kheira Hamraoui.
Hamraoui’s arrival punted another PSG midfielder, Aminata Diallo, onto the substitutes bench.
Having too many good players and not enough spots on the field is a typical problem for the richest soccer teams. Whenever you hear that top player X wants out of top team Y, this is usually the source of the friction. Often, these fights become ugly.
But according to reports in France, things may have jumped a level in this instance.
The French sports bible, L’Équipe, says matters took a turn for the film noir last week. The PSG squad got together for a team dinner. Afterward, Diallo offered to give Hamraoui a lift.
As they pulled up outside Hamraoui’s home, two men in balaclavas set upon them. They pulled Hamraoui out of the car and beat her with iron bars. The assault particularly targeted her legs. The attackers stole nothing and left.
Hamraoui was treated for cuts and bad bruises and sent to the injured reserve. The incident was news, but only in the sense of reminding the French public that bad things happen to famous people as well.
On Tuesday, Diallo took Hamraoui’s place in the starting team for a Champions League match against Real Madrid. On Wednesday morning, she was arrested by police in Versailles. At the moment, she is suspected of involvement in the attack.
“The club is paying close attention to the progress of the proceedings and will study what action to take,” PSG said in a statement.
They won’t be the only ones.
First things first – nothing’s been proved one way or the other. Maybe this is a terrible mix-up, or someone looking to stitch up a blameless person in order to get an easier ride for themselves.
But let’s just say that if the details as reported are actual facts, it doesn’t look great.
What amazes me is not that such a thing can happen, but that it happens so rarely. There is no glory in our culture quite like athletic glory. You’d imagine people who are just one person removed from it might go to unhealthy, even cruel, lengths to get some for themselves.
Combine glory with the promise of money, and that’s a combo that could turn the best of us bad.
If we want to see where this goes from here, we reach back nearly 30 years to the Kerrigan-Harding template.
By the end of the week, Hamraoui and Diallo will be the two most famous women’s soccer players in the world. If the story gets any more gaudy, they may soon be the two best-known female athletes, full stop. That isn’t a good thing for either of them.
The story contains too much tabloid catnip not to be debased immediately to its most lurid components. This won’t be about one person’s harrowing experience of being set upon and put in fear of her life. It’ll be about two crude feminine stereotypes coming into conflict.
Abetted by the content-hungry public – including the part that will howl loudest about the unfairness of it all – the media will pick over both their lives until there’s nothing left but bone. The best-case scenario is that it ends quickly and justly. The worst case, for all involved, is that it drags on for months.
It’s not polite to say it, but this sort of thing drives interest in pro sports, in the same way Kerrigan-Harding drove interest in figure skating. (Their head-to-head showdown in Norway was, at the time, the sixth most-watched program in U.S. television history.)
Every once in a while, we need to be reminded that athletes aren’t just going through the motions and collecting cheques. They will do anything – in a very few cases, literally so – to get to the top.
It’s not a valorous instinct. It shouldn’t applauded or encouraged. But it does reorient the audience’s perception of the stakes involved. And whether we will admit it, it makes us want to watch even more.
Follow us on Twitter: @globe_sports
In Lionel Messi’s Move, a Dim Portrait of Modern Soccer
In Lionel Messi’s Move, a Dim Portrait of Modern Soccer
He could not stay where he wanted; few teams could afford him. Even one of the best players of all time was not able to resist the economic forces that carry the game along.
By Rory Smith
Aug. 10, 2021
In those frantic, final hours in April, before a cabal of owners of Europe’s grandest clubs unveiled their plan for a breakaway superleague to an unsuspecting and unwelcoming world, a schism emerged in their ranks.
One faction, driven by Andrea Agnelli, chairman of Juventus, and Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, wanted to go public as quickly as possible. Agnelli, in particular, was feeling the personal pressure of acting, in effect, as a double agent. Everything, they said, was ready; or at least as ready as it needed to be.
Another group, centered on the American ownership groups that control England’s traditional giants, counseled caution. The plans still had to be finessed. There was still debate, for example, on how many spots might be handed over to teams that had qualified for the competition. They felt it better to wait until summer.
If the first group had not won the day — if the whole project had not exploded into existence and collapsed in ignominy in 48 tumultuous hours — this would have been the week, after the Olympics but before the new season began, when they presented their self-serving, elitist vision of soccer’s future.
That the Super League fell apart, of course, was a blessed relief. That this week has, instead, been given over to a dystopian illustration of where, exactly, soccer stands suggests that no great solace should be found in its failure.
On Thursday, Manchester City broke the British transfer record — paying Aston Villa $138 million for Jack Grealish — for what may not be the last time this summer. The club remains hopeful of adding Harry Kane, talisman of Tottenham and captain of England, for a fee that could rise as high as $200 million.
And then, of course, dwarfing everything else, it emerged that Lionel Messi would be leaving — would have to leave — F.C. Barcelona. Under La Liga’s rules, the club’s finances are such that it could not physically, fiscally, register the greatest player of all time for the coming season. It had no choice but to let him go. He had no choice but to leave.
Everything that has played out since has felt so shocking as to be surreal, but so predictable as to be inevitable.
There was the tear-stained news conference, in which Messi revealed he had volunteered to accept a 50 percent pay cut to stay at the club he has called home since he was 13, where he scored 672 goals in 778 games, where he broke every record there was to break, won everything there was to win and forged a legend that may never be matched.
As soon as that was over, there came the first wisps of smoke from Paris, suggesting the identity of Messi’s new home. Paris St.-Germain was, apparently, crunching the numbers. Messi had been in touch with Neymar, his old compadre, to talk things through. He had called Mauricio Pochettino, the manager, to get an idea of how it might work. P.S.G. was in touch with Jorge, his agent and father.
Then, on Tuesday, it happened. Everything was agreed upon: a salary worth $41 million a year, basic, over two years, with an option for a third. As his image was stripped from Camp Nou, a hole appearing between the vast posters of Gerard Piqué and Antoine Griezmann, Messi and his wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, boarded a plane in Barcelona, all packed and ready to go.
Jorge Messi assured reporters at the airport that the deal was done. P.S.G. teased it with a tweet. Messi landed at Le Bourget airport, near Paris, wearing that shy smile and a T-shirt reading: “Ici, C’est Paris.”
This was not a journey many had ever envisaged him making. But he had no other choice; or, rather, the player for whom anything has always been possible, for once, had only a narrow suite of options.
There is a portrait of modern soccer in that restricted choice, and it is a stark one. Lionel Messi, the best of all time, does not have true agency over where he plays his final few years. Even he was not able to resist the economic forces that carry the game along.
He could not stay where he wanted to stay, at Barcelona, because the club has walked, headlong, into financial ruin. A mixture of the incompetence of its executives and the hubris of the institution is largely responsible for that, but not wholly.
The club has spent vastly and poorly in recent years, of course. It has squandered the legacy that Messi had done so much to construct. But it has done so in a context in which it was asked and expected to compete with clubs backed not just by oligarchs and billionaires but by whole nation states, their ambitions unchecked and their spending unrestricted.
The coronavirus pandemic accelerated the onset of calamity, and so Barcelona was no longer in a position where it could keep even a player who wanted to stay. When it came time for him to leave, he found a landscape in which only a handful of clubs — nine at most — could offer the prospect of allowing him to compete for another Champions League trophy. They had long since left everybody else behind, relegated them to second-class status.
And of those, only three could even come close to taking on a salary as deservedly gargantuan as his. He should not be begrudged a desire to be paid his worth. He is the finest exponent of his art in history. It would be churlish to demand that he should do it on the cheap, as though it is his duty to entertain us. It could only have been Chelsea or Manchester City or Paris.
To some — and not just those who hold P.S.G. close to their hearts — that will be an appetizing prospect: a chance to see Messi not just reunited with Neymar, but aligned for the first time with Kylian Mbappé, who many assume will eventually take his crown as the best, and with his old enemy Sergio Ramos, too.
That it will be captivating is not in doubt. And doubtless profitable: The jerseys will fly off the shelves; the sponsorships will roll in; the TV ratings will rise, too, perhaps lifting all of French soccer with it. It may well be successful, on the field; it will doubtless be good to watch. But that is no measure. So, too, is the sinking of a ship.
That the architects of the Super League arrived, in April, at the wrong answer is not in doubt. The vision of soccer’s future that they put forward was one that benefited them and left everyone else, in effect, to burn.
But the question that prompted it was the right one. The vast majority of those dozen teams knew that the game in its current form was not sustainable. The costs were too high, the risks too great. The arms race that they were locked into led only to destruction. They recognized the need for change, even if their desperation and self-interest meant they could not identify what form that change should take.
They worried that they could not compete with the power and the wealth of the two or three clubs that are not subject to the same rules as everybody else. They felt that the playing field was no longer level. They believed that, sooner or later, first the players and then the trophies would coalesce around P.S.G., Chelsea and Manchester City.
It was sooner, as it turns out. P.S.G. has signed Messi. City may commit more than $300 million on just two players in a matter of weeks, as the rest of the game comes to terms with the impact of the pandemic. Chelsea has spent $140 million on a striker, too. This is the week when all their fears, all their dire predictions, have come to pass.
There should be no sympathy, of course. Those same clubs did not care at all about competitive balance while the imbalances suited them. Nothing has damaged the chances of meaningful change more than their abortive attempt to corral as much of the game’s wealth as possible to their own ends.
But they are not the only ones to lose in this situation. In April, in those whirlwind 48 hours, it felt like soccer avoided a grim vision of its future. As Messi touched down on the ground near Paris on Tuesday, as the surreal and the inevitable collided, it was hard to ignore the feeling that it had merely traded it for another.
Rory Smith is the chief soccer correspondent, based in Manchester, England. He covers all aspects of European soccer and has reported from three World Cups, the Olympics, and numerous European tournaments. @RorySmith
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