A point will be enough. Paris Saint-Germain need only draw on Saturday at home to Lens to resume what the club’s owners, supporters and their array of superstars regard as normal service: the lifting of the Ligue 1 title.
Assuming they oblige a Parc des Princes crowd of loyal devotees mixed in with the restless, dissatisfied fans who have in the last month chanted complaints about the running of the club, PSG will confirm the title with four matches to spare.
They will hold a lead of at least 16 points over Olympique Marseille, their traditional rivals but, in the 11 years since PSG came under the generous patronage of their Qatari owners, usually a very distant challenger. Barring an implausible series of slip-ups, the 2021/22 French league will have been won by the same dominant club that has claimed seven of the last nine.
Don’t expect the applause to last too long. By the head coach Mauricio Pochettino’s own admission, this is a PSG season defined by a standout “disappointment”, the failure to go beyond the last 16 of the Champions League, and an extraordinary stumble at that hurdle: They were 2-0 up in their tie against Real Madrid with half-an-hour of the 180 minutes remaining; they were knocked out by a blitzed hat-trick from Karim Benzema.
Against that backdrop, Pochettino’s first league title as a head coach cannot help but feel bittersweet. He was hired in January 2021 with a reputation as a bright, communicative, up-and-coming coach whose achievements with Tottenham Hotspur were supplemented with a playing past as a PSG captain.
Then, his main obvious deficit was a shortage of silverware. He corrected that almost immediately by guiding PSG to the Trophee des Champions, a one-off domestic Super Cup-style trophy, but could not make up the lag behind surprise Ligue 1 pacesetters Lille in the chase for the title. He has called this campaign, his first full season coaching PSG a “revenge” for finishing second 12 months ago.
It will stand out on Pochettino’s resume as his first important gold medal as a coach. Whether his status in management can be said to have improved in the last 18 months is moot. On Thursday, Manchester United, who had been sizing up Pochettino as a potential manager since at least three years ago, announced the appointment of Erik ten Hag for next season. United were aware Pochettino may well be on the market this summer.
He has a contract until 2023. It remains doubtful he will see that out. Pochettino has made several veiled references to fundamental differences in his and the club’s ‘vision’. From the club’s point of view he has fallen short of his predecessor Thomas Tuchel’s standard in Europe, where the owners crave success. Tuchel guided PSG to the 2020 Champions League final; he was sacked just over four months later.
Tuchel’s subsequent success with Chelsea - European Cup winners 11 months ago - points an accusing finger at PSG’s planning. So do several of the signings made last summer.
Players who can walk away for free this summer
The Italy goalkeeper Gigio Donnarumma’s first season in France will be remembered for the error he made to allow Benzema to score the first of his goals in the Champions League comeback. It remains unclear why PSG thought they needed a new goalkeeper. Keylor Navas, the popular keeper who has shared the gloves with Donnarumma, told reporters this week “things have to change,” in the way the two men are rotated in and out of the side. Pochettino agreed: “The goalkeeping situation will be managed differently in the future,” he said.
Nor have several of the other 2021 newcomers flourished. Sergio Ramos, the veteran who joined from Madrid, has been fit to start only four times in Ligue 1. Gini Wijnaldum, who came in from Liverpool, has not sustained a consistent level of performance. Of the new signings, Achraf Hakimi, ex of Internazionale, has been the most effective.
As for the superstar arrival, Lionel Messi, 34, is in danger of finishing a season with a personal goal tally inside single figures for the first time since he was a teenager. He has eight, across competitions, from his first campaign for a club other than Barcelona, where over the previous 13 seasons he always scored more than 30.
And for the first time in at least a dozen years, Messi has not been his team’s most important individual. For PSG, the lodestar is Kylian Mbappe, whose own future, with his contract expiring in June and Real Madrid presenting a seductive alternative to Paris, remains unclear.
