DOES THE EIFFEL TOWER SHINE ON SOCCER CHAMPIONS OR FOCUS ON MORE RIOTERS?
Once again, Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League title — and once again, the world wonders about the mystique of a city ruffled by violent disturbances on, well, Boulevard Saint-Germain
PARIS — Where else would I watch the rampage? Try Boulevard Saint-Germain, normally convivial, where a pack of madmen tried to knock over a bus only minutes after Arsenal botched the last penalty kick. Police sirens, shrieks of joy, flares, fires — bombs? — were illuminating the City of Light. If 8,000 police officers were on duty Saturday night, why didn’t one stop the motorcyclist who almost mowed us down?
This is a common occurrence, twice in two years for the team known as PSG, named for centuries-old royalty and not the neighborhood where cops tried vainly to control mania. To keep winning a Champions League title only brings global respect to the franchise, which once couldn’t win with three superstars. But a 4-3 victory in a shootout also brings sorrow to one of the world’s delightful cities, where folks await dark results from the latest riots.
As I write near midnight locally, still hours before sunrise, the Paris Police Prefecture reported 235 were arrested while “individuals attempted to attack the 8th arrondissement police station.” Hundreds of thousands were still in the streets, such as on the Champs-Elysees, where a kiosk was on fire and officers were injured. Last year, 563 arrests were made. Why win double championships when a city’s grandness and mystique are at stake? Why allow the Louvre to be heisted by thieves posing as construction workers?
This is Paris?
“They are making all of Europe dream,” President Emmanuel Macron said of the champs. “France is proud.”
Maybe he should look at a powerful essay published by Le Monde. Has the capital — my take — become another destructive sports town in mimicking America? He did all but blame President Trump. “Our relationship with public celebrations is changing. Too often, they are seen as a problem, rather than a promise,” Adrien Motel wrote. “Faced with the possibility of disorder, public authorities doubt their ability to organize joy in any way other than by restricting it.”
The game was explosive, taking fans through two hours of suspense before the unruly ending. PSG dominated possession time — 75 percent — and created the vast majority of scoring opportunities. Not until Ousmane Dembele scored on a second-half penalty kick was Arsenal in trouble. When the trophy ultimately would be decided by kicks, the sense was high that Paris would win. The fans watched each attempt, kicker and goalie. When Gabriel Magalhae booted the ball over the crossbar, France shook again. Last year, players asked Paris to calm down. It was useless to try once more.
“It’s crazy, it’s crazy. We’re going to enjoy it first, and after we’re going to work and work again because we want more,” Desire Doue said. “We are really hungry. We are a young team, and we know we are really ambitious. So next season we have to go again.”
“It’s incredible,” said the team captain, Marquinhos. “From the very first day, the coach said it’s hard to win, and winning twice is even more difficult. So we all had to get back to work. That was the mentality.”
The World Cup begins June 11 in North America. In Europe, a club’s success — in this case, Paris over London — is almost as prestigious. France could win a title in America, which means the disturbances could grow uglier. The world views Paris for its works of elegance — the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Roland Garros, restaurants. It’s odd living here when the town is in some form of disgrace.
“It’s even more special because we knew before the match how difficult it would be,” said coach Luis Enrique, who built his culture without Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar. “I think it’s deserved over the course of the whole season, even if the final was very closely contested.”
“France, Paris, everyone was behind us,” PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi said. “The second one is more beautiful than the first. The first was special, but back-to-back is something special for us. We have worked for years. It’s magnificent.”
Said Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta: “Pain.”
At least soccer brought the same joy when tennis has been chaotic. Coco Gauff will not repeat with a championship after losing Saturday at the French Open. You know about top seed Jannik Sinner fading away in the 90-degree heat, despite holding a two-set lead and a 5-1 advantage. Who wins the men’s title when Carlos Alcaraz is out with a wrist injury and Novak Djokovic, at 39, lost a five-set classic to 19-year-old Joao Fonseca? Wasn’t this a perfect time to win his 25th major?
“I’ll stop you right there. No,” Djokovic said. “I just lost, third round. Let’s just talk about something else. Thank you.”
He also doesn’t know if he’ll be back at Roland Garros. “I don’t know,” he said, after Fonseca called him “The GOAT. I wish it could be Roger Federer, but I mean, it’s life.”
We have seen Naomi Osaka dress as if it’s Halloween. She is in the third round after wearing a metallic gold bomber jacket over her tennis dress. Before that, she wore a black skirt and sleveless bodice, with an Eiffel Tower-like dress underneath. “I like to keep people on their toes and I think it’s really fun,” Osaka said. “There’s a community I feel like that’s been built over my on-court outfits. So I just like to just keep you guys guessing.”
Then there was Spain’s Rafael Jodar, who was accused of shoving a ball girl. “I didn’t touch her,” he said. “No, no, no. I could never do that. I didn’t push her or anything. I was telling my dad to give me the things that he was going to give me after a toilet break when I was coming back. She was in the middle, so I think she was trying to get out of the way. She was going backwards, but I think she, like, fell, but not because I push(ed) her.”
We’ve heard of players firing coaches in the offseason. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina sent Mariano Puerta back to Miami. Turkish player Zeynep Sonmez demanded that a small ad board be removed after she fell over it. “I left the court with two stitches and a bruised knee,” Sonmez wrote. “Thankfully, it wasn’t worse. Do we really have to wait until a player is seriously injured before courtside boards are removed? Player safety must come first.”
It’s as if the top players are boycotting the tournament by losing. Sinner, Gauff and Iga Swiatek threatened to sit out majors, noting how the French had reduced its revenue share to 14.9 percent when players want 22 percent. “We’re not going to move,” tournament director Amelie Mauresmo said. “We’re going to open discussions.”
All at once, the planet is looking at Paris as a sports hub. We can’t speak warmly about creeps. We do agree with Arteta, who said, “I want to congratulate PSG because they are, in my opinion, the best team in the world. What they are able to do with the ball, individual actions, I haven’t seen it before.”
We should focus on one team’s brilliance. The outside noise won’t let us.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.