PSG Success Barely Covers Up French Football's Woes

Paris Saint-Germain's progress to the Champions League final should be a cause for French football to celebrate but their achievement hardly disguises the fact that the game in the country is in crisis as the Ligue 1 season ended this weekend. PSG had already wrapped up a fourth consecutive domestic title long before the French campaign concluded, and Luis Enrique's team can also add the French Cup next Saturday. That will be followed by the Champions League showdown against Inter Milan on May 31, as PSG aim to finally get their hands on the trophy they covet most. France have won the World Cup twice and reached two more finals in the last seven editions.

But French clubs have made a habit of underachieving in continental competitions, meaning PSG can become just the second club from the country ever to win European football's biggest prize, after Marseille in 1993.

Put another way, France has still won as many European Cups as Scotland and Romania, or one fewer than Nottingham Forest.

Little wonder, then, that the French footballing community seems united in getting behind PSG in the final, despite the impossibility for rival sides of challenging the Qatar-backed club domestically.

"We are lucky to have a French team in the final," said Nice coach Franck Haise.

"I am not a Paris supporter. My club is Nice, but I am eager to see Paris win the final. I am French, as I was when Marseille won in 1993."

Marseille, Monaco and Lyon have at least all got to European semi-finals in recent years and should aspire to regularly compete at that level.

Lyon's debts

Yet the currently plight of Lyon, seven times French champions, is worrying.

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