Paris Saint-Germain completed an impressive turnaround in form to reach the UEFA Champions League playoffs on Wednesday with a 4-1 win away at VfB Stuttgart securing a top-24 berth when all had seemed lost with three games to go. Luis Enrique’s Parisien side knew that a draw would be enough as they traveled to Germany for the eighth and final round of league phase games and the French giants rubberstamped their ticket at MHPArena just one week on from a heroic 4-2 fightback win over Manchester City in Paris.
The inaugural new-look UCL format has been intriguing as far as French representatives go with PSG being the least convincing of the four clubs flying the flag for Ligue 1 on the continent while the most convincing — at times — has been unheralded Stade Brestois 29. First and foremost, for Le Championnat to have a quartet of teams reaching the knockout phase given French soccer’s extreme financial situation and the absence of a second true giant alongside Paris such as bitter rivals Olympique de Marseille is a major achievement that deserves praise.
Brest have defied the odds to finish with a top 24 spot while Lille and Monaco have lived up to their pedigree which has all too often failed to be the case with the biggest French clubs which has cost Ligue 1 dearly compared with the rest of Europe’s top five leagues. It had looked after an unconvincing opening win over Champions League debutants Girona like dropped points against PSV Eindhoven and Atletico Madrid at home as well as painful away losses to Arsenal and Bayern Munich would not be enough.
However, Les Parisiens turned it around with a strong run of late form which was headlined by an incredible fightback from 2-0 down to thump City 4-2 at Parc des Princes which has the potential to truly shape the second half of their season — especially on the continent. For a while, it has looked as if the likes of Brest, Lille and Monaco might have to go it alone without PSG which added to the frustration of having seen RC Lens drop out of Europe prematurely and OGC Nice woefully underperform in the UEFA Conference League.
Olympique Lyonnais are also still alive in the UEFA Europa League and the imminent arrival of ex-LOSC and Milan boss Paulo Fonseca at Groupama Stadium could really create an interesting dynamic in terms of Ligue 1 potentially bringing in some much-needed silverware. The expectation will not be that Brest, Lille nor Monaco do that but that PSG channel last year’s semifinal run and potential better that now that Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has been secured and will be added to Luis Enrique’s squad for the business end of the campaign.
The pressure will now change with less dependency on SB29, LOSC and ASM to keep pulling off miraculous results with Paris expected to embrace their role as the French game’s flagship team and their bumpy road to the knockouts will mean that nobody wants them in the draw. Few others will relish going to Lille or Guingamp for that matter — where Brest host their “home” UCL games — but not having to assume the burden of a premature PSG exit could embolden LOSC or Monaco to eye a quarterfinal berth or better.
Should that happen, some respect should finally be put upon Ligue 1 and French soccer which is often derided as a “farmer’s league” competition mainly through ignorance of English Premier League-centric followers of the game. Big names such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Manchester City are not easy to take down no matter how patchy Los Blancos and the Citizens’ form has been this campaign, so it is finally time to give Le Championnat its flowers and congratulations on this unexpectedly strong showing off the back of protecting its UEFA coefficient status as a top-five league last term.
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