This one either, no one, or almost, had seen it coming.
Not like that, anyway.
Not here, at a promoted.
Not three weeks, hardly, after the meeting in Lisbon and the splendor of the final of the Champions League.
In the wake of the surprise election of Vincent Labrune to the presidency of the Professional Football League, Saint Inès has yet unveiled another major surprise.
For the first time since 2011 and its defeat to Lorient (1-0), PSG opened its Ligue 1 season with a setback.
Angry at having to postpone the reunion with Ligue 1 by a dozen days to let the Parisian stars breathe after their grueling European campaign, the stands of the Bollaert stadium could not dream of more beautiful revenge.
Nine years after their last meeting with the elite, it is with a success over the reigning French champion, yet undefeated on the French scene since November 1 in Dijon, that they celebrated their return to the top. .
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Paris has resumed the season as it had ended.
By a reverse.
Eighteen days after his Champions League final abandoned at Bayern Munich (1-0), it was a promoted one who screwed him up.
Thomas Tuchel had warned: for this return to the ordinary, Paris was going to “give everything.
"But it is important that we do not expect too much of us", had specified the coach almost in a premonitory way.
And for good reason.
This time, the recovery was not made with the traditional alloy, robust and flashy.
For the first time since his arrival, Tuchel found himself confronted with the headache of football from below, the daily life of the Ligue 1 “smicards”: that of not having a choice, at least not that of King.
Bulka's dumpling
The holidays of his stars and the “Ibizavirus” brought back from the Balearics forced him to do without Navas, Marquinhos, Paredes, Neymar, Di Maria, Icardi, then Mbappé, tested positive with the Blues.
That is to say six holders of the Champions League final.
In 18 days, Paris underwent the most effective facelift in history.
It is indeed with a bench of 20 years of average age, an almost rookie in the cage (Bulka, 20 years old, 2nd game in L1) and two Titis in attack, Kays Ruiz (18 years old) and Arnaud Kalimuendo ( 18 years old) that Paris launched into battle.
A strategy that, we believed for a moment, could pay off.
Failing to work miracles, the Titis did the job, in particular Ruiz who achieved the double performance of forgetting the absence of Draxler, officially absent for an adductor problem, and to take the game on his own from his first minutes in Ligue 1. But Paris knows all the more since its defeat in Lisbon that the experience is not an empty word.
The bad revival of Marcin Bulka, guilty of having put Ganago in orbit, only confirmed it.
Failing to have launched its season, Paris can be satisfied to have at least launched its transfer window.
In an area where Thomas Meunier, who left for Dortmund, has been lacking since only Colin Dagba, Thilo Kehrer and therefore Layvin Kurzawa can occupy the post, the club has just reached an agreement with Alessandro Florenzi, the right-back of AS Roma which should be committed in the coming hours in the form of a loan with an option to buy.
Considering the evening of this Thursday, it is a lesser evil.
Match sheet
Half-time:
0-0.
Referee:
Mr. Ben El-Hadj.
Spectators:
5,000.
Goal.
Lens: Ganago (57th).
Warnings.
Lens: Doucouré (44th), Sotoca (70th).
PSG: Sarabia (38th), Bernat (78th).
Lens:
Leca (cap.) - Gradit, Badé, Medina - Michelin, Pérez, Doucouré (Mauricio, 83rd), Sylla (Boura, 84th) - Kakuta (Cahuzac, 71st) - Ganago (Jean, 72nd), Banza (Sotoca, 65th).
Entr.
: Haise.
PSG:
Bulka - Kurzawa, Kehrer, Kimpembe (cap.) (Diallo, 74th), Bernat (Bakker, 84th) - Herrera, Gueye, Verratti - Ruiz-Atil (Dagba, 68th), Kalimuendo (Jesé, 75th), Sarabia.
Entr.
: Tuchel.
