D-1 before the last step. PSG is on the eve of the match which may allow him to qualify for his second Champions League final. The Parisians, winners 1-0 on the first leg last Tuesday, face Wednesday May 7 at the Parc des Princes Les Anglais d’Arsenal in the semi-final return. And there is no doubt that the match will be followed by a lot of French, because Paris Saint-Germain, a club which was hated for a long time beyond Ile-de-France, has conquered in recent years an increasingly wide audience. The result of a strategy initiated by its Qatari owners.
To check this hexagonal fervor for PSG, direction Angers, 300 km southwest of Paris. The city center of Angers, its numerous bars, where just a week ago, at 9:04 p.m. precisely, a host of red and blue jerseys celebrated the goal of Ousmane Dembélé almost as strong as in the streets of the capital.
“We are much more, Mathis advance, 20, This is the first time that I have seen so many Parisians in Angers gathered in the same place. “ The young man was born in Angers, grew up in Angers, but with an inheritance: “It is my father who, since a child, has transmitted his passion for supporting PSG. As in all the cities of France, here is Paris!”
Mathis is part of the PSG Fan Club d’Angers, created two years ago by Julien. “I’m from Angers, I was born there, I have always lived there, he says. I have been a fan of PSG since I was little. I wanted to federate around this PSG passion. ” Among the first to have joined this club, Céline, who is delighted to share with ever more Angevins her passion over 35 years old: “We still had stars who came at one point: Mbappé, who stayed for a few years, we had Neymar, Messi … All this made that there was a little more craze for PSG.”
It is the amused eye that Fabien observes this fervor, the only Parisian of birth. “My first match was in 1988, he recalls. And, subscribed from 1998 to 2006, I left for Angers. And in a city like Angers, in 2006, there were very few Parisian supporters. ” So Fabien rejoices of course, but in good Parisian, he nuances.
“No more supporters is good, it should not be too much.”
Fabien, supporter of PSGin franceinfo
What is surprising is that there is an elite club in Angers, which regularly faces PSG, moreover: the SCO which, over the last ten seasons, has spent nine in Ligue 1, and which has a faithful audience, especially some of these adolescents of the NDC club, in the north of the city. For example, Zoé, 14, look at the SCO on weekends. “It’s the city. It’s my second favorite team”, she launches. His second team because the first is “Paris. They have talent, they show things that we do not see in all the teams.”
Same thing for Kessie, 11 years old. “I have three Paris jerseys. I like players, for example I like the way Barcola plays because he is young and plays well”, he details. But even among young people, PSG is not unanimous. Callie leans for the rival: “Olympique de Marseille, not PSG. They especially like to have stars while we prefer players who give themselves for the jersey.”
Has PSG become the most popular club in France? For example, there is this study by the Professional football League dating from February. When we ask the French interested in football to which club they associate the round ball, PSG is ahead with 75%, OM is second with 65%, while 15 years ago, just before the arrival of Qatarians, the OM was largely ahead of Paris by more than 30 points.
It is the result of a long -term work carried out at the PSG headquarters where, since 2016, Arnaud Delpech has organized the network of supporters clubs in France. “There, we look at the list of all the groups that will be present in the PSG-Arsenal match”, he describes.
“We see that we have a group in Indre, there are also the Vosges, the Gironde, the Basque Country, La Rochelle, Poitiers, Angers, and people who come from the meeting.”
Arnaud Delpech, fan interactions manager at PSGin franceinfo
In total, there are a dozen groups in France to whom PSG offers group ticket offices and other advantages. “Indirectly, we also have an interest in capitalizing on the presence of these groups, because they are ultimately the best club ambassadors in their region. And they will sometimes be able to access somewhat friendly experiences, like being able to approach players in the front match during the warm-up for those who come from far away and who are engaged all year round.”
But is the expansion of PSG unlimited? In any case, according to this same study of the League, the percentage of Parisian supporters, after a strong increase in ten years, stagnates in the last two seasons.
