The draw for the group stage of the Champions League has reserved a tough but affordable group for PSG.
The French champions will face Manchester United, RB Leipzig and Istanbul Basaksehir.
Decryption of this hen which will begin on October 20 and whose schedule will be published Friday evening.
Manchester United, a taste of revenge
Barely exorcised by a Champions League final, the ghosts that haunted PSG will be back this fall at the Parc des Princes.
The draw offers Paris revenge for its elimination in the round of 16 of the Champions League in 2019. A pitiful loss on a penalty from Rashford at the last minute, following a hand from Presnel Kimpembe.
At the time, Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer was making his debut for the northern England club.
The Norwegian has just lived a season of purgatory with a semi-final of the Europa League and a qualification snatched in the Champions League, with a third place ... 33 points behind champion Liverpool.
A year that still allowed Anthony Martial to take on another dimension (23 goals in 48 appearances).
Midfielder Donny van de Beek, one of Ajax Amsterdam's leaders until the 2019 Champions League final, is the summer's only flagship signing.
Paul Pogba, embarrassed all last season by ankle problems, is finally operational, in a team whose form remains uncertain at the start of the season (1 victory and 1 defeat in the Premier League).
Leipzig, reunion with the bottle class
A big blow of young people on an air of deja vu.
It's a bit of the clever mix that will accompany the reunion between PSG and RB Leipzig.
A month and a half after their victory (3-0) in the semi-finals of Final 8, Neymar and his gang will cross this time the "bottle class" of the German championship in the group stage.
Because not content with having achieved an almost flawless performance since his arrival in the Bundesliga in 2017, it is in addition with a workforce of 23 years of average age that the gifted Germanic football, to whom the Red Bull brand gave wings, will attack the third Champions League campaign in its history.
“Leipzig is a really very structured, super serious club,” warns Jean-Charles Sabattier, specialist in German football on beIN Sports.
Their worst result since their arrival in the Bundesliga is 6th!
This season again, they will aim for the top 4 and qualification in the Champions League.
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To achieve this, Nagelsmann will rely again on his French colony led by the new international Dayot Upamecano, Nordi Mukiele and the former Parisian Christopher Nkunku.
But perhaps on another distinguished guest since the Saxony club would have taken it upon themselves to repatriate Thomas Lemar from Atlético Madrid before the end of the transfer window.
Basaksehir, Erdogan's club
This is the stranger to this group.
By becoming Turkish champions for the first time in their history, Başakşehir Istanbul suddenly made a name for themselves last July.
A fanfare arrival on the map of European football in a Turkish capital of which it is one of the five clubs to evolve in the elite.
An express rise when it was founded only 30 years ago.
A short story that did not have time to give it real popular momentum.
Başakşehir thus struggles to bring together more than a few thousand supporters to his matches.
But the main support of the team remains Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The President of the Republic was the de facto president of the club when he was mayor of Istanbul.
Bought by supporters of his party, the AKP, in particular by his personal doctor, the club is now chaired by the husband of Erdogan's niece.
On the sporting side, Başakşehir relies on a very experienced group which includes the goalkeeper of the Turkish selection Mert Günok, the ex-Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel, the French Enzo Crivelli or Demba Ba, executioner of PSG with Chelsea in 2014.
