Overview

Paris is a city that sets the style for the rest of the world. For decades, though, its lights did not shine on a great football club. This book tells the complete story of Paris Saint-Germain, from 1970 to the 2025 Champions League, as a long search for identity between glory and disorientation, money and passion, the city and the banlieues. From the early, complicated seasons in the second and third divisions to making the Parc des Princes their home, from narrow escapes from relegation to the triumphs with Safet Susic, Weah, and Raí, ""Paris Est Magique"" follows step by step the birth of a real Parisian supporter culture, the rise of fandom that explodes between the Boulogne end and the Virage Auteuil, between families from western Paris and kids from the outskirts. The reader is taken inside the culture of PSG support, among ultras, banners, and chants that turn the stadium into a social laboratory of French football. The Qatar Sports Investments era instantly changes the scale of the club. Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva, then Neymar, Mbappé, and Messi transform PSG into a symbol of modern European football. But along with the Qatari era come the contradictions of Financial Fair Play, the stigma of being ""new money,"" the comebacks suffered in the Champions League that seem to condemn the club to being forever almost-winners. The book shows from the inside this conflict between industrial project and popular dream. The turning point comes with Luis Enrique's collective project, when PSG chooses to move from a collection of stars to a total team. The treble season and the 2025 Champions League in Munich against Inter become the narrative thread tying past and present together. Not only the night of the 5-0, but the journey that takes Paris to finally becoming champions of Europe, closing a circle that began with the lost final in Lisbon and the painful collapses of previous seasons. At the heart of the story there are always the people. The kids from the banlieues growing up between small pitches and local academies in the Île-de-France. The key figures in the youth setup who bring talents like Warren Zaïre-Emery and Senny Mayulu into the first team. The quiet, relentless work of the academy, men's and women's, that turns PSG Féminines and the youth sector into structural pillars of the club, not just shop windows. The reader discovers how the women's side and the youth system interact with the first team and with the club's global image. The book moves from the intimate geography of the Parc des Princes to the capitals of the world. Tokyo, Doha, New York, Rio, Mexico City become stops in the journey of a brand that now lives on the shirts of kids across five continents. At the same time, the conflict over a stadium the club can own never disappears, nor does the dream of a new ground in the metropolitan area and the emotional resistance of those who refuse to abandon the Parc. ""Paris Est Magique"" is a narrative essay that combines historical rigor with the sweep of a great sports novel. It speaks to PSG fans, to those who love French football, to anyone who wants to understand how a top club really works in the era of global business. But it also speaks to readers who look to football for a universal story of rises and falls, collective identities, and cities that change along with their teams. If you love modern European football, if you're fascinated by the tension between project clubs and people's clubs, this book is for you. From the 1970 merger to the 2025 treble, every page takes you into the heart of a club that today is a symbol of Paris and of the wider world. And it invites you to keep following the most beautiful game there is with the same passion with which, for half a century, thousands of voices have shouted a single phrase in the stadium. Paris est magique.

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