French soccer was dominated by Paris Saint-Germain this year, but the game in the country has regularly been overshadowed by affairs off the field over the past 12 months.
PSG won an unprecedented clean sweep of the domestic trophies last season and have enjoyed a record-breaking first half to the current campaign that has seen them open up an enormous lead at the top of Ligue 1.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the dominant personality in the French game, wrote his name firmly into the history books by passing Pauleta’s club record tally of 109 goals in all competitions when he scored a brace in a 2-1 win for PSG over bitter rivals Olympique de Marseille in October.
Photo: AFP
Olympique Lyonnais played their final game at their old Stade de Gerland this month and move into an impressive new 59,000-seat stadium early in the New Year.
The French soccer landscape is changing as Girondins de Bordeaux also took up residence in a new stadium earlier this year as France gears up for Euro 2016.
The finals could mark the dawn of a new era for the game in France after a difficult past few months.
It is a nation still raw from the terror attacks in and around Paris that left 130 people dead, with the national sport one of the targets on the night of Nov. 13.
Before the full scale of what was happening became clear, three loud explosions emanated from outside the Stade de France during a France-Germany friendly.
The game carried on in a surreal atmosphere and only later did it become clear that the explosions were suicide bomb attacks.
“We are all proud to be French and what’s happened will leave a mark on all of us,” France coach Didier Deschamps said.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
Erling Haaland on Sunday scored twice to propel Manchester City up to second in the English Premier League with a 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth. The Cherries started the day in second thanks to the longest unbeaten run in the English top flight, but Andoni Iraola’s side were undone by the scintillating form of the Norwegian striker, who took his tally to 13 Premier League goals in 10 games. Haaland’s relentless streak is maintaining City’s title challenge as they reduced the gap to leaders Arsenal back to six points and edged one point ahead of Liverpool, who they face at the weekend. “Important
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
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