M le mag Champions League
Stunned by the defeats of their favorite club, the fans of Paris Saint Germain drag a tenacious spleen. Denial, abstinence, even infidelity: all solutions are considered.
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A Paris Saint-Germain supporter before the match against Bordeaux, at the Parc des Princes, March 13, 2022. BENOIT TESSIER / AI / REUTERS / PANORAMIC
Two weeks after the disaster, the wound is still raw. PSG fans have not mourned the murderous defeat (1-3) inflicted by Real Madrid in the return match of the knockout stages of the Champions League. They who already imagined their team on the roof of Europe after their victory in the first leg find themselves, once again, embarked on the rapids of a "descentada". At least they are on familiar ground.
When asked for his news, Alexandre Amiel, producer, director and subscriber to the Park, answers: “Post-traumatic state. Attempt at self-mockery? Not sure. The boiling public of PSG has morale in the socks. He has become a shadow army again. Disenchantments are the priesthood that every supporter must embrace, but the Parisian team has raised the art of losing to a level rarely reached. The ambassadors of the dream team sponsored by the millions of Qatari owners of the club have not only put the spleen in the court-bouillon. They were brutally sent back to their vocation as losers. The syndromes of this diffuse evil, the acute descentada, manifest themselves in various ways.
In mourning
In this gym at the Porte de Vincennes in Paris, where young people come to lift cast iron, the dress code has suddenly changed course. No more question of protruding his muscles under a PSG tunic. The black t-shirt is making a comeback. We grieve as best we can. Both generous and creative in defeat, the club specializes in spectacular setbacks. The most memorable remains the incredible reversal of the situation operated in 2017 by FC Barcelona. Corrected 4-0 in the first leg, the Catalans inflicted a bitter 6-1 on the Parisians in the return match. A feat of arms which gave birth to a successful expression – la remontada – which Arnaud Montebourg, himself an expert in failures, proposed to import into the political vocabulary.
“Around midnight, my wife woke up. But, are you crying? Yes, I was crying, ”says Kevin, 37
Almost five years to the day, after this berezina, the evening of March 9, 2022 was, once again, tearful. At the third goal scored by Real, Felix, 11 and PSG pegged to the body, burst into tears. “The feeling of an injustice and, somewhere, of a curse. It was too hard, because this time we really believed in it,” sighs his father. He himself is not quite sure that he emerged unscathed from this painful elimination. “I know, I would have to arm myself, that I would be blasé, but I can't do it…”, he breathes. During this cursed evening, the ghosts of PSG defeats caught up with Kevin, 37. “Around midnight, my wife woke up. "But, are you crying?" Yes, I was crying,” admits this boss of a logistics company in the Paris region.
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