Paris Saint-Germain will be hoping a severely curtailed summer break does not come back to bite them as the Ligue 1 season begins this weekend, headlined by the newly-crowned European champions and featuring the return to France of Paul Pogba.
It is just the second time that the French top flight has boasted the Champions League winners among its ranks, with PSG’s success against Inter Milan in May following Marseille’s triumph in 1993.
Luis Enrique’s team added the UEFA Super Cup on Wednesday as they came from two goals down against Tottenham before winning on penalties.
The nature of that success was made all the more remarkable given they had just a week’s pre-season training under their belts, and no friendly matches.
That is after they went all the way to the Club World Cup final in the United States, their 3-0 defeat against Chelsea on July 13 bringing the curtain down on a marathon 65-game season.
That did not take the shine off their achievement in winning the Champions League, but those exertions risk having an impact on Luis Enrique’s players further down the line.
“What we did last season had been the objective for all PSG supporters, for the whole club, and for everyone who played for the club,” PSG’s coach said this week.
Now we want to keep on making history, and that means winning consecutive Champions Leagues, so that is our objective. That is the dream.”
Put another way, continued European success is the priority over winning a 12th domestic title in 14 years.
PSG are nevertheless overwhelming favourites to do that as they attack the season having added goalkeeper Lucas Chevalier from Lille to replace Gianluigi Donnarumma, and Ukrainian centre-back Illia Zabarnyi from Bournemouth.
– Lyon back from brink –
French football has been mired in crisis due to difficulties finding a domestic broadcast partner willing to offer the kind of money needed to help teams beyond PSG compete with their European counterparts.
At the end of last season, the French league pulled the plug on a cut-price deal with streaming platform DAZN.
Instead it has launched its own platform, a bold step which may succeed in the long run but for now means clubs have no guaranteed television income.
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