Paris is perhaps the most productive city for player development in the world. But could you beat one of the richest, most global clubs in football using only players from the City of Lights? Martin Vert has been set that challenge.
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“Trust the system…”
It’s been nearly two years since I first heard the voice. And then the second. They take turns now, waking me up alternate nights with unsolicited advice. Contradictory, unsolicited advice. I don’t know what to do about them.
We head into August in high spirits. We have made some good signings and are stronger than last season. When we finished 2nd. Which is mad. Fofana still wants to leave, but doesn’t blame me for being stuck here anymore. I’m hopeful that a decent start will see him realise that his future is here with me.
“Here” is a difficult concept. For some strange reason – glitches in the football managing matrix – we are playing our home games back at the Pierre-Brisson. Our home ground is, however, listed as the 20,000-seater Stade Jean-Bouin, the state of the art facility right opposite the Parc des Princes. The Bauer, upon completion of its upgrade, seems to have vanished. I blame the voices; they are to blame for this supernatural occurrence. Or maybe it was Steve. Could they be working together? Regardless, my office is now an inter-dimensional void somewhere in the sky above Saint-Ouen.
August does not present us with an easy way into the season. Lens, Lille, Lyon and Rennes await us, all of whom want to be in the Champions League hunt and all of whom have strengthened over the summer. Lens are up first, and they’ve brought in seven players. Two of them are PSG youngsters that I was targeting, so they’ll be strong. We need to hit the ground running.
It’s a great start to our season. It’s not just three points on the board, and it’s not just an opening day goal for Tattevin, but we dominate Lens from start to finish. When Huard is brought down in the first half, I think we’re going to get started, but Tattevin blasts the ball wide. No matter, we limit Lens to a handful of chances and slice through them time and again. In typical Red Star fashion, it’s just the single goal lead, but what a goal it is. Sissoko lofts the ball over the defender from the half way line, and Tattevin brings it down with his first touch, and fires into the top corner with his second. Lovely.
Dejan Stankovic’s Lille have been in good form ever since he took over half way through last season, and it was only their poor start that prevented them from challenging us in the Champions League places. They have spent €8m strengthening this summer – a decent amount – with former Real Madrid midfielder Lucas Vasquez the pick of them. Another tough game, but we’re ready for it.
This was an exciting, end-to-end game, full of chances and excitement, and, unlike the Lens game, not much like Red Star at all. As you might expect, Tattevin’s penalty was well earned, while Lille’s was a clear dive and anybody could see it. When Cabral gives them the lead just after half time I fear we are about to be overrun, but we push forward and bring on the second striker, and wouldn’t you know it, Daclinat gets the late equaliser, rounding Grbic and slotting into an empty net.
Third up are Lyon, who are still smarting from losing to us on the final day of last season and have splashed out €26m as a result, mostly on Marc Roca and Julian Brandt. They just keep getting stronger, and the Groupama Stadium will surely be a fortress as always. But we upset them once, so just maybe we can do it again.
We are absolutely magnificent, and Lyon are lucky to have made it as close as they did. Amadou Traore opens the scoring after just five minutes and it feels like we’re imposing ourselves on the game. Jason Denayer has a goal ruled out for offside, before another penalty – our third in three games this season – lets Tattevin double our lead. Dembele gets one back with a lucky deflection just after the break, but our own lucky break, an own goal from Denayer, puts the game beyond Lyon’s reach, even with the late, long range thunderbastard from Roca.
In the final week of August, our inaugural Champions League group is drawn. I expect many more in the future. There are no easy groups, but Real Madrid, Roma and Porto feels like a very difficult way to test ourselves in Europe. We’ll do our best, but we have no expectations in that competition this year.
Where we do have expectations is the league. Not high expectations – I want to be clear of the relegation fight again – and our start has people looking up the league table again, but Rennes will want to put a dent in them. They haven’t picked up a win in their opening three fixtures, despite adding Perr Schuurs among others in their summer spending. The Pierre-Brisson is rocking again, and we try to turn it into a cauldron as their coach turns up. We want to finish August strong. Camara has a fitness concern so Doukansy comes in, and Fomba has already picked up a suspension after just three games, giving Barreto his first start of the season.
I’m not sure what happened here. We just didn’t turn up. Rennes got about us early and made it difficult to get our passing game going, and Collado gives them a first half lead. He doubles the advantage just after half time and I throw on the extra striker. Diarra gets one back from a corner but as we push forward in search of an equaliser, they punish and condemn us to a heavy defeat with two more goals. Not what I had hoped for.
It’s not the end to the month we wanted, but we have to remember that, whatever the European competition we’re in, everybody expects us to be in the relegation dogfight and we’ve just played four of the toughest teams in the league. So, all in all, not a bad start.
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