A Parisian procession to the title

Paris Saint Germain eased to their second Ligue 1 championship in a row, and sixth under Qatari ownership, on matchday 33 of the season, without even kicking a ball as second-placed Lille were held to a goalless draw by Toulouse.

Kylian Mbappe fittingly scored a brilliant hat-trick later that evening as PSG ran out 3-1 winners against a struggling Monaco side to start the celebrations.

CHANGES

There was much excitement around French football in the summer of 2018 as the national team won their second World Cup at the tournament in Russia.

PSG, as has been customary, were huge favourites going into the campaign in which they had a new head coach in Thomas Tuchel who was taking over from the outgoing Unai Emery. Mbappe, the breakout star of the World Cup, made his loan deal permanent while the club from Paris also brought in legendary goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, Juan Bernat, Thilo Kehrer and Leandro Paredes to bolster an already star-studded squad.

In an attempt to comply with financial fair play, PSG sold Goncalo Guedes to Valencia for £36m with Javier Pastore and Yuri Berchiche both generating fees in excess of £20m. Odsonne Edouard also made his loan deal to Celtic permanent, bringing in a further £9m.

Lyon signed young French forward Moussa Dembele late on in the window from Celtic for £20m to replace the outgoing Mariano Diaz, who moved to Real Madrid.

Olympique Marseille brought in Kevin Strootman who arrived from Roma in a £22m deal. Duje Aleta-Car from Salzburg was signed for £17m while Nemanja Radonjic from Red Star arrived for a fee of around £10m. These incomings were partly funded by selling Andre Zambo Anguissa to Fulham for £22m.

With the massive departure of Mbappe finalised, on top of sales of Thomas Lemar to Atletico Madrid, Fabinho to Liverpool and Terence Kongolo to Huddersfield, Monaco were extremely busy over the summer window. Aleksandr Golovin arrived from CSKA Moscow, Benjamin Henrichs and Willem Geubbels arrived for £18m each with…

Source link : https://www.footballcritic.com/season-reviews/a-parisian-procession-to-the-title-ligue-1-in-2018-19/209

Author : [email protected] (Abel Meszaros)

Publish date : 2024-08-02 10:00:00

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