Youssef Msakni smurfing into PSG?

"I don't care what he says, a blond mohican isn't a good look for anyone" Here are the Paris St Germain news headlines of the last 24 hours. - Nasser Al-Khelaifi said stuff to France Football, I'll summarise: New Messis blah blah, staying at the Parc blah blah, club identity important blah blah blah. It's nothing we haven't heard before, and who knows, some of it may turn out to be true. - At France training Jeremy Menez and Franck Ribery were photographed wearing funny hats (above) which, according to Chronofoot, make them look like Smurfs. I'm saying nothing. - The club has arranged a punishment treat for the players not on international duty, as the famous Brazilian singer Michel Telo will be visiting the Camp-des-Loges training ground...

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PSG stars go off on their travels

"While those other losers are in Germany I can stay at home and play Call of Duty" This blog has been in a stunned silence since Sunday, when we awoke after a Saturday night out to the news that PSG had drawn 4-4 with Lyon the previous evening. Having been 3-1 and 4-2 down, late goals from Ceara and the lovely Guillaume Hoarau, his second of the match, secured an unlikely point. The result saw Montpellier take over at the top of Ligue 1, a fact which doesn't seem to concern Carlo Ancelotti too much. "We played a good match and I'm satisfied with our performance," said the Mister. "We slipped to second but that's not a problem right now. Maybe it will be at the end of the season but we just need to stay confident and play our football. "We...

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Carlo's Lyon conundrums

It never ceases to amaze me how French football fans don't travel. PSG will be followed south to Lyon tomorrow by nearly 1,000 supporters, their largest away contingent of the season. To put that into context, my "other" team, who play in the fifth tier of English football, took 1,100 supporters to an away match last month. Can you imagine if Manchester City could only muster that many people for a match at Chelsea? Madness, especially when you consider how passionate they are at home games. Anyway, well done to all those going, it's quite a long way and promises to be a difficult match, despite Lyon's current ropey form. I was over in France last week and the papers were not impressed as OL snuck past Cypriot minnows Apoel 1-0 in the...

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Ancelotti's PSG: Substance but no style?

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Not sure whether Ed is big in France, but they usually like that kind of whiny nonsense So far the week at PSG has been about as exciting as an evening in spent...

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PSG 2-2 Montpellier: Hoarau grabs a slice of the points

I hope their delivery boys wear rabbit costumes Hello folks, I'm back and refreshed after my winter break.  Sadly I didn't spot Leonardo on my travels (see last post) but I did learn that France has an amusingly-named chain of take-away pizza shops called Speed Rabbit Pizza. Sounds like the topping combination from hell to me. In my absence, Paris St Germain laboured to a 0-0 draw in Nice last Sunday, and in midweek edged past Dijon 1-0 in the Coupe de France thanks to a Nene goal. A quarter-final with Lyon awaits. Then last night, The Big Top-of-the-Table Show-Down in Ligue 1 ended 2-2, with Les Rouges-et-Bleu sharing the spoils with second-place Montpellier. This morning's French papers are fairly unequivocal in their...

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Holiday time

Paris's latest landmark, I'm surprised they got planning permission On Friday Le Parisien published a helpful stalkers guide to where abouts the PSG players live in Paris. Personally I think it was just an excuse to re-print the Pastore-is-nearly-as-tall-as-the-Eiffel-Tower photo (above), but it did furnish me with the fact that Leonard lives in the 6eme, the same arrondissement as my in-laws. I'm off on holiday this week, so will be taking my binoculars with me in the hope of sighting of our illustrious Director of Football. This blog will return in seven days or so, hopefully with covert pictures of Leo putting his milk out*. Or something. Allez Paris! *This is a joke. PSG Tourist does not advocate stalking the rich and famous, especially...

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A glimpse of Thiago Motta's text life

OM fans often find conversation difficult, poor souls You'll have probably noticed that the England job has become available this week, and I wonder whether Antoine Kombouare could be a left-field candidate to replace Fabio Capello? After all, following his experience this season he's used to working under ridiculous pressure in a job where's he on a hiding to nothing. I have no idea how AK's English is, but language didn't seem to be a concern for Capello and let's face it, anything's got to be better than Harry Redknapp. Thankfully managerial shenanigans are a thing of the past at PSG, for now anyway. It's been a pretty quiet week at the club as the players prepare for the Nice game on Sunday under a humongous dome...

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Pastore to return for PSG's Montpellier snow-down?

Worryingly this little chap has his own website PSG were supposed to be playing Dijon in the good ol' Coupe de France tonight, but the match has been called off due to snow and ice. If you don't live in Europe, said snow and ice descended at the weekend causing, to quote the Daily Mail, widespread CHAOS, DEATH, and PANIC. Where I live, it's also caused an outbreak of people building snow penises, like the one above. Truly we live in a broken society. Someone whose season has been very much on ice (see what I did there) lately is Javier Pastore, who tore his hamstring playing against Sable-sur-Sarthe earlier this month, and has been on the sidelines ever since. El Flaco was out in Qatar last week receiving some specialist treatment,...

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PSG 3-1 Evian TG: Ancelotti's unbeaten start continues

Lazy journalism is a cry that often goes up when folk in the media get things wrong. In my experience, errors are usually born more out of over-workedness than laziness, but there’s no excuse for a lack of basic fact-checking. For example, the commentator in last night’s PSG v Evian match repeatedly referred to Diego Lugano as “the Italian defender”, despite the lovely Lugano being captain of Uruguay and one of his country’s most high-profile players. Everyone makes mistakes but a little bit of rudimentary research would be nice. At least the commentator managed to get the scorers of PSG’s three goals right, as Nene and Co secured a third successive Ligue 1 victory of 2012 to stay clear of Montpellier (who also won again) at the top...

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A mini Menez and a sulking striker

Reports that the Emilie and Jezza have posing contests at home are unconfirmed Everyone likes a heart-warming tale on a Friday afternoon, so I'd like to start today's blog by saying congratulations to Jeremy Menez, who is soon to be a father. Jezza and partner, reality TV "star" Emilie Nef Naf, are expecting the pitter-patter of tiny feet later this year. I've been doing some research into Nef Naf, who won the third series of Secret Story - a sort-of French version of Big Brother - in 2009, and it's fair to say she's an interesting looking creature; I'm predicting that the fruit of their love will be the most pouty baby ever. Amusingly Nef Naf recently opened a hairdressing salon in Paris, and given the state of Jezza's barnet I don't...

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Player Profile: Thiago Motta

Name: Thiago Motta DOB: August 28 1982 Former Clubs: Juventus SP, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Genoa, Internazionale Signed: January 2012, €10million International: Brazilian under-23, full Italian international Paris St Germain’s only signing of January transfer deadline day 2012 turned out to be Inter Milan’s elegant midfielder Thiago Motta. Costing the PSG an estimated €10million, Motta brings with him experience by the bucket-load, having served time at some of Europe’s top clubs. Born in Brazil, the 29-year-old started his career at Juventus, an appropriate club given his Italian lineage (more of which later). Interestingly enough, his new team-mate Alex is also a graduate of the Juve youth system, they’ve probably got friends in...

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