Project Paris has not come cheap for Qatar Sports Investments. At last count, the owners of Paris Saint-Germain had spent more than £ 820 million on transfer costs, recruited some of the world’s highest profile players and coaches and maintained nothing but failure in the Champions League every season since to buy the club in 2011.
But after crossing over to a 3-0 half-time victory over RB Leipzig on Tuesday, when superstar strikers Neymar and Kylian Mbappe both ran to the occasion with superb performances, PSG are now just 90 minutes from realizing the dream of their ambitious and very rich owners by winning the Champions League and making all the investment and brains (and maybe even those penalties of financial fair-play thinned by UEFA) is worth it all.
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No team has been built to win the Champions League just like PSG, not even Manchester City, whose owners from Abu Dhabi have passed on more than £ 1 billion to players since taking over the club’s ownership in 2008 and still have to enjoy it. the satisfaction of even reaching the finals. City had to overcome stiff competition to earn success in England before even thinking about the Champions League, but PSG have become so completely dominant in France since taking over Qatari – they have won seven of the past eight Ligue 1 titles – that domestic promises have not become much more than preparatory competitions for those who really make.
PSG did not set a world record € 222 million on Neymar in 2017 to maintain its grip on French football. Likewise, the € 180 million spent on Mbappe was not only designed to weaken AS Monaco and reduce the biggest threat to the dominance of the Ligue 1 club. Every signing and appointment since the world changed for PSG nine years ago has been done with Champions League success in mind.
David Beckham was recently signed in 2013 to boost PSG’s global image following the earlier arrivals of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva, who will say goodbye in Sunday’s final against Bayern Munich or French rivals Lyon. Champions League multiple winning coach Carlo Ancelotti was hired right at the start of the Qatari project to turn PSG into a European powerhouse, while the likes of Angel Di Maria, Edinson Cavani, Marco Verratti and even Gianluigi Buffon were brought in to to give the team experience and quality at the highest level.
None of it seems to make a difference. Year after year, PSG fell short in the Champions League, so much so that the clash with Leipzig was the club’s first semi – final since a defeat to AC Milan in 1995.
After the humiliating round of 16-second leagues against Barcelona (6-1) and Manchester United (3-1), in 2017 and 2019 respectively, it looked like PSG were cursed to fail. But Thomas Tuchel’s team has now taken the club to new heights by reaching the final in a season when the chances seem stacked like never before.
With the COVID-19 pandemic leading to the cancellation of the Ligue 1 season, PSG arrived in Lisbon for the last eight mini-tournaments, since playing only one competitive match since March – the final victory of the Coupe de la Ligue against Lyon last month. How could they compete against the elite of Europe who were forced to sit and watch as all their rivals returned to action in their own domestic leagues?
But after beating Atalanta last week with a dramatic late battle in the quarter-finals, PSG looked fit, sharp and undefeated against Leipzig at Benfica’s Estadio da Luz. Neymar and Mbappe pulled Leipzig’s defense apart several times, with Di Maria also causing destruction in attack for the French champions. At the back, Silva organized a rocky PSG defense alongside Marquinhos, whose main goal put the team on the road to victory before further goals from Di Maria and Juan Bernat.
On these performances, PSG showed that they have the offensive threat to beat Bayern, if the favorites beat Lyon to reach the final. And when they face Lyon, PSG will know they have more than enough to beat the seventh best team in France.
But after so many millions have been pumped into the squad, PSG should be exactly where they are right now: counting down to a Champions League final.
They will not be popular finalists because of the way they came up, who saw that in 2014 they were paid € 60 million by UEFA for a breach of financial fair play schemes, and many will consider it evidence that money buys success as they lifted the European Cup on Sunday. But PSG and its owners will leave that debate to others. For them, Sunday is the chance to plant their flag on top of a mountain they continuously have no scale.
Only one French club – Marseille – has won the Champions League, but PSG are now just 90 minutes away from emulating their big rivals and doing it themselves.
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