Do any of these randomly pitched autumnal Champions League fixtures mean anything? Probably not when you’re Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona, and the only game in town is risk-free TV income and a semi-guaranteed place in the knockout stuff. But this was still a dazzling occasion at the Parc des Princes, where the champions of France and Spain played out a light, open, frictionless, exhibition-style game of football.
PSG finished 4-2 winners, having been pegged back to 2-2 midway through the second half. But this was also a game where the score almost did not seem to matter, and where the only really hard message was the frailty of the Barcelona backline and PSG’s thrilling attacking energy in these midweek A-games. DEBRIS!” the insanely loud PA announcer screamed into his mic before kick-off, in what appeared to be a poor-taste tribute to the current state of the nation’s capital, although it may also have been “du bruit”.
In the hours leading up to this game France’s interior minister had specifically ruled out postponing the whole thing due to the ongoing state of civil unrest, the kind of statement that is no doubt intended to sound reassuring, but which also generates its own kind of whiplash. No, but Paris really is burning this time. The main site of the violence of the last few days is three miles east of the Parc, which lurks by the ring road in one of Paris’s slightly négligé inner quarters, rising up like a vast concrete alien doughnut in between the townhouses.
On matchday it required a degree of cognitive dissonance to take in these two opposing spectacles. On one hand the piles of charred bikes and the mass looting which has, in reassuringly Parisian style, seemed to focus on elite high-fashion brands. In the middle of which Paris also hosted this glittering treat of a football match, stuffed with so many throwaway little delicacies, like an elite artisan patisserie.
Before kick-off there were leaping tongues of flame, a laser show spectacular, and a vast tifo at one end showing a ghoulish PSG serial killer type attacking the Barcelona badge with his blood-soaked chainsaw. The message here seemed to be: we are confident. We believe in our process.
And we will hack you to death. From the start this was a high-grade, disarmingly open game. For Hansi Flick’s Barcelona it represented a genuine test of method.
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