The final time received a European trophy, a long-haired swapped shirts with a long-haired Roberto Baggio. It was 24 years in the past, however one other determine appears immediately acquainted within the footage. The primary substitute PSG introduced on that day in 2001 once they beat Baggio’s Brescia nonetheless has the identical slender construct, the identical haircut. Now, if will get European silverware for the second time, he must overcome the membership with which he received his first.
Virtually 1 / 4 of a century later, each Arteta and PSG are eyeing a larger prize than the Intertoto Cup. In an period when PSG are serial Ligue 1 winners and an ever-present drive within the knockout levels of the , their days within the Intertoto Cup really feel nonetheless extra of a curiosity. They weren’t even its solely winners in 2001 – and Troyes additionally received one of many competitors’s three finals – but it surely offers a snapshot of a interval in time, of the Paris Saint-Germain that was.
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It’s unrecognisable in elements, however a few of that identification lasted for much longer within the French capital than Arteta himself. He joined as a teen on an 18-month mortgage in 2001 and was bought by Barcelona to Rangers in 2002.
(Icon Sport by way of Getty Photos)
Arteta closes down AC Milan’s Andrei Shevchenko throughout a Champions League match (Getty Photos)
Earlier than Arsenal beat PSG in October final yr, Arteta reminisced a couple of roommate he described as “excellent”. They however appear the odd couple, Arteta and Ronaldinho, the management freak and the libertine. The temptation is to imagine that the Brazilian could be going to mattress across the time the Spaniard was getting up.
Ronaldinho was to make the alternative journey to Arteta, becoming a member of Barcelona in 2003. But his presence in Paris was an illustration that PSG have been a glamour membership with a cosmopolitan air lengthy earlier than their Qatari funding. Arteta’s teammates, if not all on the identical time, included Ronaldinho, Pochettino, Jay-Jay Okocha, Nicolas Anelka, Gabriel Heinze, Laurent Robert and Ali Benarbia.
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Maybe they have been gifted underachievers then. They solely completed ninth in Ligue 1 in 2000-01, although they did attain the second group stage of the Champions League (just like the Intertoto Cup, an innovation that didn’t final), with Arteta beginning two attracts in opposition to . In his solely full season in France, PSG got here fourth. In a low-scoring Ligue 1, a staff with expertise and entertainers solely mustered 44 objectives in 34 league video games.
They have been, arguably, lower than the sum of their elements. Ronaldinho’s season was to finish with him profitable the World Cup, however he frolicked on the bench. Anelka left on mortgage for Liverpool mid-season. His relationship with supervisor Luis Fernandez was not essentially essentially the most harmonious; some would possibly say that was typical for every.
Nicolas Anelka was a part of a massively proficient PSG staff who failed to achieve nice heights (Getty Photos)
Now PSG are managed by , one other excellent midfielder born in Spain, one other supervisor who has received European trophies. Luis Fernandez, a part of the Euro 1984-winning France staff, had taken PSG to the 1996 Cup Winners’ Cup. He had managed George Weah, David Ginola and Rai in his first spell in Paris. There was stardust within the dressing room when he returned, however a fractiousness, too. Fernandez and Robert fell out, and whereas the winger starred within the Intertoto Cup win, he was then bought to . Okocha scored 5 objectives within the Intertoto Cup in 2001-02 however solely 4 in Ligue 1.
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Twenty years on, it appears incongruous that considered one of Paris Saint-Germain’s star gamers moved on to , however he did. One other went to Rangers. Arteta had excelled in Paris. There have been options that PSG hoped to show a mortgage right into a everlasting signing. As a substitute, Rangers agreed a £6m price with Barcelona in March 2002, even earlier than his time in France had ended.
Supervisor Alex McLeish was later to get a popularity for dour, defensive soccer, rendering him a much less possible supervisor for a stylist like Arteta, however he had been impressed in a Uefa Cup tie between the 2 groups. Arteta was to attain a penalty that received Rangers the Scottish title in 2003; he had scored in a shootout in opposition to them, however Okocha, Heinze and Pochettino missed theirs as PSG exited the competitors.
PSG don’t are inclined to lose gamers to Rangers lately, after all. Some parts of the Arteta-era PSG are lengthy gone.
Arteta’s males swept apart Actual Madrid within the quarter-finals (Getty)
Luis Enrique is forming a new-look PSG aspect just like the one Arteta as soon as featured in (Getty)
Others lingered longer. There was a keenness for large names, the sense they didn’t obtain what they might have achieved on the continental stage. Luis Enrique could change that this yr; if he can get the higher of Arteta. The elder Spaniard was an affect on the youthful at Barcelona.
And but, as Luis Enrique appears to vary the identification of PSG, maybe it’s with an emphasis on Arteta-type signings. He has a proficient, younger midfield, gamers on the up who have been focused and signed. Which, nearly 1 / 4 of a century earlier, was precisely what occurred to Arteta.
