The 2021-2022 season has confirmed it: Paris-Saint-Germain remains a steamroller on the national scene of men’s handball. By winning against Montpellier on May 6 at home – the 25and victory in twenty-five games – the Parisians won the title of champion of France five days before the official end of the championship.
This national title is the eighth consecutive won by the capital club. The ninth since the 2012-2013 season and the arrival as the main shareholder of Qatar Sports Investment (QSI), the Qatari investment fund which also owns the football team: only the 2013-2014 championship escaped PSG, who has also won five French Cups since 2007 (including four under the Qatari era), as well as three League Cups (2017, 2018, 2019).
If the Parisian formation took on another dimension at the national level after its passage under the Qatari flag, supplanting Montpellier which was until then the reference, it has not, however, managed, so far, to concretize its other ambition: the capital’s handball players – no more than Parisian footballers – failed to impose themselves on the European scene by winning the Champions League.
The team had to settle for finishing in third place four times in the prestigious continental competition, playing only one final, in 2017, lost against Vardar Skopje for a small goal difference (24 to 23).
This season, PSG is still in the running in European competition: the club faces the Germans of Kiel, Wednesday May 11 and Thursday May 19 for a place in the semi-finals.
Substantial means for ten years
How to explain this sort of glass ceiling? PSG has, however, had significant resources for ten years with the arrival of QSI. Big names have been recruited, such as the Dane Mikkel Hansen, or the Frenchman Nikola Karabatic, already three times winner of the Champions League with his previous clubs. More recently, the club signed two renowned goalkeepers, Jannick Green and Andreas Palicka, as well as promising Yoann Gibelin and David Balaguer.
“Why has Paris still not succeeded? Difficult to explain “, acknowledged Mikkel Hansen in an interview with The Team May 10. For the Dane, who had to end his season prematurely due to complications after knee surgery, “These high-level confrontations are played on small details”. In fact, the PSG has despite everything appeared five times for the “Final four” over the past six seasons. Sign that he is not so far from the goal. This “the first trophy is the hardest to win”, supports Jérôme Fernandez, the former player of Montpellier, Barcelona and the France team.
And if the journalist and handball specialist for twenty-five years Emmanuel Roux speaks of a ‘Curse of the Champions League’ for PSG, Jérôme Fernandez offers an explanation: the French championship would have a higher level than that of its European neighbors (Germany, Spain), which could wear out the Parisian team a little more than its European competitors.
“The outsider position can work in their favor”
The expectation generated by the club, by its name and its owners, would add additional pressure, according to Bruno Martini, a former goalkeeper for Montpellier, Paris and the France team. This would influence “the way players have of apprehending the meetings”, explains the one who was also the general manager of PSG, before becoming president of the National Handball League.
“In the Champions League, anything can happen”, warns, however, Arthur Yapo, the physical trainer of PSG, who is pleased that there is “no injury today, it proves that we can give them what they need”. The absence of a European title gives the Parisians a “position of outsiders which can work in their favor”, advance Jérôme Fernandez. “The players are in a better peak of form”, adds the former left-back, referring to recent games.
Everything seems possible today, also thinks Bruno Martini, underlining the habit of this kind of meeting for PSG, which has many international players in its ranks. “We are happy to go to the next round, but we want more”, warned Benoît Kounkoud on April 7 on the evening of the victory against the Norwegians of Elverum, opening the doors to the quarter-finals.
Last year, PSG and Kiel had already clashed at this same stage of the competition. Beaten in the first leg by two goals, the Parisians won the return by six goals at home, earning their ticket to the “Final four”. “Against Kiel, it’s really 50-50”, considers Mikkel Hansen, who does not despair of being able to win what would also be, on a personal level, his first Champions League. Even if he won’t be on the field.