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PSG is going to win Ligue 1’s title. It didn’t wind up happening Wednesday despite the opportunity, so it will drag out a little while longer. But what has been inevitable for months—was inevitable before the season started, really—will come to fruition. It should be cause for celebration. The club will join Marseille and Saint-Etienne as the most successful in France’s history with 10 Ligue 1 titles all-time. Eight will have come in the last 10 seasons, a product of the Qatari investment that has turned the club into one of Europe’s handful of domestic monopolizers.
Yet instead, it all feels like mere consolation. The club’s own supporters, spoiled as they may have become, aren’t happy. A big bet was placed over the summer, when a transfer spree for the ages—not all big buys, as the free-transfer route was wielded quite strategically—was geared toward pushing PSG over the hump in the Champions League. On paper it all looked so great and promising. Lionel Messi. Sergio Ramos. Gianluigi Donnarumma. Achraf Hakimi. Georginio Wijnaldum. Winners on big wages all coming together under one umbrella, held by the reputable Mauricio Pochettino, with an eye on becoming the next iteration of Galactico champions.
