Yves Jaeglé, journalist in the Loisirs du Parisien department, usually writes about exhibitions, books or other cultural subjects. But Yves has a particular fondness for football in general and PSG in particular. And on the eve of a Sunday apart, that of a first Champions League final for the Parisian club against Bayern Munich in Lisbon, he did not resist the urge to make a statement.
“I was 5 when you were born, and 9 when we met. It was for my first Panini 1974-1975 album, and you were just a small club, but the one in my city. From Grand Paris, let's say. You were already the foreshadowing with this name that I did not understand well, atypical and stylish: Paris Saint-Germain Football Club.
I wanted to be a goalkeeper, I worshiped Pantelic. Then Baratelli, Bats, Lama: we became PSG guardian for a long time at that time, a five-year or a seven-year term. We took the best of France. I sometimes wonder why Lloris didn't spend ten years with you.
The first time I saw you up close, it was a PSG-Sochaux, on a Tuesday evening, we didn't have school the next day, and the Sochaux of that time was much stronger than you. They were going to live their European epic long before you, until the semi-final. We used to say the UEFA Cup. Genghini under the snow. It was before global warming.
In the Park the children always went behind the goals, in the Boulogne stand, the time of innocence. I saw Johnny Rep then in Bastia equalize against you two minutes from the end, just in front of me. It was a stab but it was Johnny Rep…
I was at the Park when Laurent Paganelli started in Division 1 at the age of 15 and a half, against you. They said it was historic, a record of precocity. It was said that when the Greens came to Paris, they played at home. We never whistled them but I was pushing for you, my PSG.
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I saw Susic, Dahleb, Rocheteau learn to play center forward and no longer right winger to make you win. I saw Philippe Jean, the star of my suburban club, wear your colors for a few matches and make us proud, the USP minors, then disappear from the match sheets.
I was 17 and you won your first Coupe de France. It was our World Cup and Francis Borelli kissed the pitch. I had missed the French bac for an unnecessary dribble too much. Innocence fled.
I was 18 and you won the Coupe de France against Nantes and José Touré the Brazilian. For us, those who were born with you or almost, it was already huge. It was almost too beautiful and becoming an adult was not easy, neither for you nor for me.
"You held my hand on Sunday"
You looked for your way like me. The middle of the table. A few really bad games, entire seasons thrown out the window sometimes. Europe and its humiliating defeats, from Waterschei to Videoton. The comeback, at least we will remember. More than these Hungarians. Evenings crying with rage in silence.
Evenings laughing and screaming with joy, from Toko to Amara Simba, bicycles and falls.
And then Canal arrived. Brazil has arrived. Valdo, Ricardo, Raï long before Neymar and Marquinhos but the same smiles that are football itself. The European epics have arrived. Weah arrived, Ginola loaded. Kombouaré has become a legend. Tickets were getting more and more expensive at the stadium. But I was there when you were led by Barcelona 0-1 on an uncrossed header from Bakero on my side - the same as Marquinhos - before capsizing us with happiness with two goals for heaven. On the benches, Johan Cruyff, and Luis Fernandez, whom I had seen start as a full back twenty years earlier or almost. What people say about you is wrong: you have a very long history, my PSG.
In 1999, I got divorced and I subscribed. I really needed you. You held my hand on Sunday. It was the year of Jay Jay Okocha and the most improbable attack in your history, Laurent Leroy-Christian. Some evenings they dazzled me. Real thing. I do not forget your elders, PSG. I don't forget Marco Simone who was hated so much after being loved so much.
We sometimes lost sight of each other. The subscription was too expensive, it was cold in December against Troyes, you changed and me too. Pauleta carried you in turn. But you drifted again. You forgot your own story. The violence has entered your own home. There are episodes that we prefer to forget.
Then everything got carried away, again and more and more. For the past ten years, everyone knows them, my PSG. There have been so many players and I am too old to keep Panini albums any longer. My memory is failing.
Today, like a Proust madeleine, you have brought everything back, from Dogliani to Verratti, from Brisson to Bernat, from Peyroche to Tuchel. You have fifty brooms and so do I.
Sunday, I will be 10 years old. The first one who says it's not true, shut up at recess. "
