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When Paris Conquered Europe
Snapshots of Paris Saint-Germain fans taking over the Champs-Elysées the day after PSG won the Champions League
What is it about football that inspires such extreme reactions? It’s a question I’ve been pondering for a long time — far longer than I probably should. Without any evidence to back me up, I’m taken to believe that football is the most passionate sport in the world, and that this is due to how it reflects life.
There’s an element of luck, randomness and pure chaos in football that makes following it so intoxicatingly appealing — and agonising. Unlike, say, rugby or American football, where the strongest team can essentially put up a cricket score against a weaker rival, rendering any sense of jeopardy moot, football is unique in that even the most impoverished minnows can score a worldie out of nowhere and then spend the rest of the match ‘parking the bus’ and ‘shithousing’ their way to the most unlikely instance of glory you’ll ever see. Though the big teams always dominate, they’re never fully assured of their status; humiliation is only ever a freak own-goal away. The realisation that you’re forever subject to the vicissitudes of fortune means that when your team does win, the feeling is almost transcendent.
