“I didn't sleep all night, I'm exhausted but it was worth it. » Gabriel, 25, dozes in his office with a smile on his face. This Parisian supporter has reason to be happy: he is one of the lucky 3,000 who were able to see with their own eyes Paris Saint-Germain's qualification for the semi-finals of the Champions League on Tuesday evening in Barcelona. A unique moment that he gave himself with a little luck, but above all a lot of nerve.
Originally from Yvelines, Gabriel crowds the stands of the Parc des Princes once or twice per season. “But I had never traveled to Europe in my life,” he says. The quarter-final return against Barça ticks, in his eyes, all the boxes for an ideal first time. But he is far from being the only one to dream of Catalonia: on March 21, when tickets for the match were put on sale on the PSG website, the 3,000 tickets reserved for Parisian supporters were gone in a handful of seconds, leaving thousands of fans on the sidelines.
He leaves “on a whim”
Among them, friends of Gabriel, who had nevertheless booked everything in advance, including accommodation on site and the return flight. They decide to make the trip anyway, to take advantage of the good weather and the best tapas restaurants in the city. “On a whim, and only a few days before the return match, I decided to follow them,” remembers Gabriel.
The young web designer takes two paid holidays, Monday and Tuesday. Sunday evening, he takes a night bus to reach Catalonia. He meets his friends in town around 11 a.m. and walks around all afternoon. “In our heads, there was always a little hope of getting places,” he remembers.
When PSG plays away, supporters must go to a meeting point set by the club. They show their voucher and receive in exchange their ticket for the match, accompanied by a bracelet. “We said to ourselves that with a little luck, some would not be able to come and that the tickets would be put back on sale at the last minute,” says Gabriel.
“We showed up for the first time on Monday, but the club told us to come back the next day, at the end of the afternoon,” explains the supporter. The small group does so and returns Tuesday, match day, around 5 p.m. “But in the end, the PSG staff don’t really know if there are still places available. They tell us that we have to go to the front of the stadium and hope that the club has a few tickets to sell just before kick-off. »
An option that doesn't really suit Gabriel's friends. For fear of being disappointed again and above all of taking the risk of missing the start of the match, their accommodation being quite far from the Montjuïc stadium, they decide to return to the apartment.
“At that moment, I told myself that there were too many, that there would not be enough withdrawals”
Gabriel, for his part, tries everything for everything. “I put my headphones on and start typing the address of the stadium into my phone,” he says. “My goal: to join the procession of Parisian supporters along the way, to enjoy the atmosphere, then go to the ticket office and tell myself that with a little luck I will have a place. »
He arrives near the stadium around 7:30 p.m. “There, I see a kind of red and blue van, in the colors of the club,” he remembers. “There were two lines: one for those who had problems with their seats, one for those who simply didn't have any. » Like around fifty other supporters, Gabriel slips into the second queue. “At that moment, I told myself that there were too many of us, that there wouldn't be enough withdrawals and that it would never go away. »
And then, around 8:30 p.m., the young fan's trip took another turn. “A
guy
from PSG gets up and tells us there are a few places left. » Gabriel celebrates the news like a goal. “I started to make friends with a fan in front of me in the queue. To maximize our chances and make things go faster, he decided to take our places and asked me to make a transfer to him. I didn’t know him two minutes before,” he laughs again.
“I will never forget this evening”
With his evening friend, Gabriel gets his place and goes through the security check at full speed. “We arrived in the park at 8:50 p.m., so I didn’t even miss a minute of the match,” he rejoices. The rest, everyone knows it: Dembélé, Vitinha and Mbappé bring Barça to the ground and send PSG to the semi-final of the Champions League.
Gabriel wasn't even able to celebrate this qualification in one of the city's many nightclubs. “My plane was at 5 a.m., I landed shortly after 7 a.m. and went straight to the office,” he says, yawning. “It's going to be a long day, sure, but I'll never forget this evening. » The saying “luck favors the bold” has never seemed more true.