“He stays,” tweeted Gerard Piqué, smiling, an arm around Neymar. The player was “200% staying” claimed Barcelona. La Liga took the denial a step further by turning away PSG’s lawyers, €222m cheque in hand, before refusing to promptly deliver Neymar’s international clearance certificate, meaning the world’s most expensive player was forced to watch the first Paris Saint-Germain game from the Parc des Princes stands. Despite the efforts of his former team-mates, club and league, Neymar is a PSG player. The fee and fanfare aside, the attitude in Spain more than anything illustrates the seismic shift in European football that the Brazilian’s gargantuan transfer represents, a watershed moment for Ligue 1. This weekend, in sleepy Guingamp, Neymar finally made his French football debut.

In the last decade a clear European footballing aristocracy has developed. A combination of often overwhelming wealth and the allure and grandeur of the continent’s great clubs has made European football’s summit close to impenetrable for other clubs. The world’s best players have exclusively populated this small clique of teams in the last 10 to 15 years and even the Qatar Sports Investments billions behind PSG have not been able to break the hegemony with limited to little success in the Champions League. The majority of their marquee signings have come from Serie A’s top sides, not the impregnable fortress of La Liga, the Premier League or Bundesliga’s elite.

Considering their performances, this has not been surprising for PSG. For much of the modern era, French domestic football has not been taken as seriously as the rest of the traditional top five leagues – and with good reason. French teams have continually underachieved and limply exited European competitions and no side is more prone to a continental collapse than PSG. The Paris club are the self-anointed breakers of that established order with the aim of dragging Ligue 1 back to the forefront of Europe’s footballing consciousness. Up until now, they have failed.

The Neymar inspired 6-1 drubbing at the Camp Nou last season amounted to utter humiliation and thoroughly eradicated any hope engendered by the 4-0 first-leg win, while the drab exit from the Champions League at Manchester City a year earlier surpassed the Barcelona whirlwind in frustration and disappointment. The Champions League last eight is all QSI’s quasi-galáctico, money-throwing policy has been able to produce. However, French football beyond QSI and PSG has quietly been gathering momentum for some time and Neymar’s arrival is a sign of that burgeoning development and a pivotal moment for the league.

Guingamp’s Stade de Roudourou had been sold out for more than a week, the significance and potential spectacle of Neymar’s debut not lost on the Breton locals. This game was more than the routine Sunday evening Ligue 1 fare but Neymar doesn’t seem to feel pressure or the weight of expectation, his boyish grin has been ever-present since his arrival and remained in place throughout Sunday night. Although the goalless first half was a frustrating one, Neymar’s supreme quality was routinely evident, his first touch was close to being a sublime whipped assist for Ángel Di María. But as a dogged Guingamp probed, PSG took charge. An incisive turn and run from the new man created their first, the ball eventually ricocheting into the path of the Guingamp full-back Jordan Ikoko, who inexplicably slotted past his own keeper. A delightfully shaped Neymar through ball set Edinson Cavani free to make it two before roles were reversed for Neymar to tap home with three minutes to play. As PSG coasted to three points and Neymar enjoyed an excellent debut, the reasons behind Neymar’s arrival remain the central story for Ligue 1 going forward.

Despite Neymar’s diplomatic tone at his unveiling, a key factor in his reasoning behind his move to Paris, money and the motivations of his father and entourage aside, is, with little doubt, winning the Ballon D’Or. An achievement that would likely be beyond his reach at Barcelona while Lionel Messi remains “pope of the town”, as a member of the player’s team colourfully explained to RMC radio. Neymar needs his own side to be built around him. Whatever the financial incentive, crucially for French football, the fact that Neymar sees PSG – and by extension Ligue 1 – as the place to realise this dream underlines the strides that French domestic football has made in the last year and is at least partly down to the exciting, youthful and competitive division that has developed over the last 18 months.

Granted, little more than a year ago, PSG won the title by an absurd 31 points but last season they were ambushed. Monaco were effervescent in usurping PSG and stealing their Ligue 1 crown – Leonardo Jardim’s side embarrassing their rivals further in making the Champions League semi-final. Lyon managed to partially leave behind their own flakey displays on the European stage to reach a Europa League semi-final while Nice staged a strong challenge of their own, sitting top at Christmas and taking four points from PSG over the campaign.

Marseille have lured Adil Rami, Dimitri Payet, Patrice Evra and Luiz Gustavo to Ligue 1 through the investment of LA Dodgers owner Frank McCourt while Lille and Nantes have pulled off sizeable coups in naming Marcelo Bielsa and Claudio Ranieri as their respective managers. Lille’s new Spanish-born owner, Gérard Lopez, has bankrolled their €50m outlay this summer while Lucien Favre’s Nice and an exciting Bordeaux side have enjoyed foreign investment of their own. Ligue 1 is increasingly becoming an attractive proposition for investors and players alike, to such an extent that others are being left behind. Ligue 1’s record champions, St Étienne, a regular Champions League chaser in recent campaigns, although proud to be French owned, have admitted they can no longer keep pace with the top six financially.

With their peers catching and even surpassing them, PSG desperately needed to hit refresh. Neymar’s arrival, with his prime before him, is arguably the biggest moment in the club’s history, certainly since QSI’s arrival, and represents a victory on a number of levels. Primarily, it is the first meaningful sign that Unai Emery’s side are capable of competing with the established European aristocracy on player recruitment, tempting away a prize asset from one of their rivals against their wishes. A fact reinforced by the rebuffing of Barcelona’s pursuit of PSG talisman, Marco Verratti.

Moreover, the deal takes PSG’s galáctico ethos to another level. Signing one of the world’s top five players has long been an objective, something they have not come close to achieving before. While crucially, it is difficult to forget among the fanfare, this significantly strengthens Emery’s hand in the Champions League, a competition that has become a club obsession and where ultimately they will be judged by others and themselves.

The reluctance of the Spanish authorities to accept the move and their apparent disbelief at the series of events that led to one of La Liga’s biggest draws leaving Spain, is a sign that, for the first time in close to two decades, an outsider – albeit an obscenely rich outsider – may start to truly break European football’s established order. It remains to be seen whether Neymar alone will be able to remedy their big-game emotional frailty but despite the sums involved, this is a move that says as much about the increasing relevance of Ligue 1 as it does about QSI’s bottomless pockets. Perhaps La Liga, Barcelona and Pique should be reminded of that This summer, it was Neymar who called PSG.

Talking Points

Strasbourg handily turned the tables in their home opener against Lille, displaying considerable attacking verve against Les Dogues in a 3-0 win, but Bielsa must take some of the blame for the team’s loss. Having frozen out veterans such as Vincent Enyeama and Julian Palmieri, he has left his side with precious little Ligue 1 experience save the forward Nicolas de Préville, and when the midfielder Thiago Mendes and the right-back Kévin Malcuit were both forced off through injury, perhaps a coincidence but nevertheless suspect, given how hard the players had worked in the off-season. The Argentine then compounded matters by removing the struggling left-back Fodé Ballo-Touré before the interval, leaving himself without any substitutions and nearly an hour of football to play. It is arguable, after the bright cameo by the reserve Rominigue Kouamé, whether Ballo-Touré should have started, but Bielsa, never one for sentiment, resolved to make the switch, a dangerous gambit against a Strasbourg side who looked emboldened by their vociferous home support. Things really came to a head, though, when the player earmarked as Enyeama’s replacement, Mike Maignan, was sent off (and could face further suspension) for throwing a ball at Benjamin Corgnet, leaving de Préville to play in goal. Bielsa has done wonders in the past with young squads but his most recent successes have been buoyed by veterans in key roles (André-Pierre Gignac, Alaixys Romao and Steve Mandanda at Marseille, Andoni Iraola, Gaizka Toquero, Gorka Iraizoz at Athletic Club). His hegemonic nature is unlikely to change but that could leave Lille in a situation no better than last season, especially with Óscar García having Saint-Étienne purring.



Marcelo Bielsa ran out of substitutions at Strasbourg during Lille’s 3-0 loss. Photograph: Anthony Dibon/Icon Sport via Getty Images

Purring is certainly a relative term but for the second week in a row, Saint-Étienne ground out a 1-0 win, leaving them level on points with Lyon, Monaco, PSG and Marseille at the top. Without European football to distract, the team can double down on the defensive solidity that has been their trademark of late, while also playing with more freedom going forward as a result of a restructured midfield. The youngster Assane Dioussé is a more prosaic presence than Vincent Pajot but his inclusion as the left-sided central midfielder has allowed Bryan Dabo greater freedom in attack. Dabo was dynamism embodied at Montpellier but his first season resulted in him clashing with Christophe Galtier, and being dropped for Jordan Veretout and Henri Saivet; his season ended with less than 700 minutes played in the league, making him one of the season’s biggest transfer flops. Still only 25, he seems to be enjoying a new lease on life under García, playing as a complete box-to-box midfielder. A consistent source of goals will still be a problem for Les Verts but with Dabo and a similarly back-in-favour Oussama Tannane closer to their best, there is no reason to think this run can’t continue, even if a trip to Paris in two weeks’ time looms.



Monaco were also at their bullish best against Dijon, winning 4-1 on the road, with set pieces again being key. Jemerson’s overhead kick was the pick of the bunch but Radamel Falcao’s hat-trick shouldn’t be ignored, either. Kylian Mbappé will generate the transfer rumours and attention but the Colombian was good for just a shade over a goal every 90 minutes in the league last season, no mean feat in a team with so many weapons. In the current campaign he has netted four times in 165 minutes, topping the scoring charts with aplomb. On Sunday there was also the genesis of what seems, even in its infancy, a promising partnership with the former Rennes youngster Adama Diakhaby, whose pace was key to creating space for his fellow attackers, even if his own involvement was somewhat limited. Mbappé would doubtlessly be a huge miss if he does depart but Monaco still look a good bet to challenge for the title as Jardim seems to have El Tigre fit, focused and ready to lead this team to another strong season.

While Nabil Fékir was the focus of last week’s main article, that he turned in an even better performance against Rennes shouldn’t go unnoticed. He had been good but not great against a promoted side, and one of his two goals was from the spot; a trip to Rennes would surely offer a sterner test. The Breton side are still sorting themselves out tactically and personnel-wise, and were poor in defence, but they do offer a bustling midfield in the form of Benjamin Bourigeaud and Benjamin André. Against a young Lucas Tousart and a lightweight Sergi Darder, the hosts should have had ample control centrally but Fékir was constantly dropping deep, pressuring the ball and both allowing Darder the chance to attack as well as subverting Rennes’ perceived advantage. His movement was key laterally as well, frequently pulling out to either wing to allow Memphis Depay and Bertrand Traoré the space to cut inside and enhance the front four’s fluidity. Add in an inch-perfect cross for Mariano Diaz’s goal and Fékir produced a truly complete performance, despite not finding the back of the net himself.

Results: Nice 1-2 Troyes, Rennes 1-2 Lyon, Nantes 0-1 Marseille, Amiens 0-2 Angers, Bordeaux 2-0 Metz, Caen 0-1 St Étienne, Toulouse 1-0 Montpellier, Strasbourg 3-0 Lille, Dijon 1-4 Monaco, Guingamp 0-3 PSG.

