Emirs and Princes: the PSG vs Monaco clash of the titans of Ligue 1 Season 2013-14

What's all this talk about Falcao wanting to leave Monaco already? Keep hearing rumors. Is it the French tax system? Monaco felt the need to officially deny this, too.

It's not even allowed to switch clubs twice in one transfer period no?

It's rubbish. Pure speculation. The idea is that they could not compete on wages if the players had to pay income tax, which ignores the fact that they're bankrolled by one of the richest men in Europe.

Thanks for clearing that up. Is the 75% tax on highest incomes already effective?

I think so. It crops up in a lot of pieces about Ibrahimovic's wages.

Oh yeah and it was why Depardieu fled into Putin's arms right?

Anyway, thanks for clearing up the Falcao nonsense.

Ooof aliadiere fk pounded in through gk hands in lorient v nantes

Free on setanta lol

Monaco is tax free iirc

Ronald Zubar currently keeping Cavani and Ibrahimovic at bay.

PSG have had 27 shots on goal, 13 on target. Ajaccio have had one. Beautiful strike from Pedretti though.

Cavani 1-1!

ibespaws

Unbelievable match. Ochoa was superb.

there were stories about manchester united and barcelona buying ochoa circa 2007

the last ten minutes were excellent, i don't know exactly how they are going to play cavani and ibes together but in lieu of coherence there was at least spirit

also nice to see ravanelli's enthusiasm for ibes at the end, even if it didn't seem to be entirely reciprocated

so I was at Parc des Princes yesterday. it was pretty fun.
I think the team is not ready yet but mainly they clearly weren't lucky (especially in the last 15min). Ajaccio had like one chance (and they scored) but the rest of the game they were all in defence. I mean, during most of the game, T. Silva and Alex were playing at 30 meters... of Ajaccio's goal ! (and Silva almost scored 2 times !).
again, like last year, against Paris, most of the teams (and goals) of league 1 play the game of their life !
Cava's goal was great. and there were some brilliants dribbles from Lavezzi and Verratti.
Pastore was awful (and I like him in general!).

Alex o.g makes it 1-1. Could be another exciting finish in the PSG match.

Jesus, Rabiot goal in the 92nd minute to give PSG the lead vs Guingamp. Zlatan makes it 2-0 in the 94th. Blanc is living dangerously.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/06/marseille-gangland-murders-crisis-talks/print

as monaco 1-0 down to 50s throwbacks reims

kondogbia and james benched but all the other famouse names are playing

including nu-crissy ron lucas ocampos

fiendish near post fk from moutinho 1-1

Monaco still on top of the league, which is quite impressive, but Paris is coming closer... and will play OM at Marseille, who are 3rd, on sunday : exciting ligue 1 !

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9430/f4tp.jpg

This story has everything. You're in Paris, you know what you have to do. Post review here please: Toad, in the hole: rolling-you-home football catering thread

ahah !
maybe I'll give it a try... if Paris wins the CL !

zlatan with a very ibra goal last night as psg beat bastia 4-0. cavani with a nice goal of his too, as both guys scored a brace. take a minute to soak in the disguting horror that is bastia's kit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqayII75nyk

also, as soon as i'm back in paris (which shouldn't be too long now) i'm def trying to get some friends out to boulogne for that zlatan burger.

http://i.imgur.com/292frVu.png

has solomon kalou suddenly turned into garrincha or are the ligue un marketing team getting ahead of themselves

tbh i find ochoa's presence on there far more surprising. as for kalou, they're banking on the fact that he's an ex-chelsea player and that he's been quite good for a few months now. it could also be that they wanted at least one player from an african country, seeing as there are probably quite a few viewers in french speaking african countries (this is a guess based on absolutely no facts, so could be completely off the mark)

Yeah that sounds about right. Indeed having Ochoa is kinda weird but why not, it's fun to have him in Ligue 1

zlatan's league record is ridic

2002 - eredivisie - ajax - champions
2003 - eredivisie - ajax - 2nd
2004 - eredivisie - ajax - champions
2005 - serie A - juventus - champions
2006 - serie A - juventus - champions
2007 - serie A - inter - champions
2008 - serie A - inter - champions
2009 - serie A - inter - champions
2010 - liga - barcelona - champions
2011 - serie A - AC milan - champions
2012 - serie A - AC milan - 2nd
2013 - ligue 1 - PSG - champions

the ultimate chancer

meh those teams all won by a nose

so sweet 4-0 for Paris against Lyon with a panenka from Ibra and some juggling in the middle of the game, FIFA style, that made me lol irl... he's so crazy !
PSG's latest ligue 1 results at home are quite impressive : 4-0, 3-1, 4-0, 4-0 !
November crisis.

they are definitely on another level. and ibra is def awesome, even if the clowning came at the expense of the team i support.
tough week aheead for lille who play marseille and then psg. lille is the best defending side in all europe with only 4 goals allowed in 15 games. they share the honor with roma, who also allowed only 4 goals so far. which is an interesting coincidence, considering that rudi garcia coached lille before leaving for roma this summer.

yeah I look forward to the game against Lille and hope they will be a good opposition because OM, Lyon and Monaco (even Reims who were the last team to beat us... last march !) have all been quite disappointing...
Ibra was clearly a bit off limits in terms of respect to the opponent... but he might be the only player in the world who can get away with that !
also, it could be seen as a way to spice up the game and wake Lyon up since they were kinda knocked off at this point.
Vercoutre seemed happy anyway in the end!

iirc you're on a 30 something unbeaten streak between ligue 1 and CL.
didn't watch the game so no idea how off-limits ibra was but agree with your assessment that he's one of very few players who can do that and get away with it.
of all these opponents i only saw the game against monaco and you could tell one team had trained with its stars for a longer period of time. it was kind of underwhelming. you might soon be in the situation that lyon was during their dominant era (god that seems so long ago now) where you'd have such a massive lead points-wise that the players lose focus (and losing in the champions league makes them even more unfocused).
game against lille should be fun though, i'm really curious to see if they'll manage to thwart your fear-inducing strike force.

yeah, that's the risk (having no worth opponent and outrageously dominating the league... yeah, it seems so long ago for Lyon !).
that's why I was glad that Monaco got in the big game. but they're not very impressive so far.

http://nsa33.casimages.com/img/2013/12/01/131201104131964004.gif

disappointed by zlatan's juggling i have to say

ahah, yeah, as many have said, he did less than pierre menez (the journalist who was in a clash with patrice evra) !
but doing in during a game is quite fun anyway.

Amazing win for Evian vs PSG tonight.

fuck - paris only one point ahead now

damn it evian ! that's the second time they beat us ! it was a nice game though. they played it well and were so happy at the end. it was like they won the world cup or something !
anyway, after 36 games, defeat had to come at some point... I prefer Paris to lose to Evian than to Lille, Lyon, OM, etc.
I still can't understand of Menez and Pastore didn't manage to score though.

can't understand how

gotta love dupraz in an interview after the game saying he's annoyed cause he wished his players would play like that all the time.

eheh, yeah, that was pretty cool.
the pitch seemed quite hostile. un champs de patates !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsY8dMELhlY

this angle

Enyeama has been amazing this season for Lille. 14 clean sheets in 16 games!

Paris back in the game after evian : 5-0 at home.
2 goals and 2 assists for Zlatan which put him at the top of the ligue for goals (13) and assists (6).

Enyeama Vs zlatan will be grand !

surprised to see gignac continued and even improved his goalscoring from last year

still looks ridiculously out of shape and might struggle if he is asked to press relentlessly by bielsa

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/OM_-_FC_Porto_-_Valais_Cup_2013_-_Andr%C3%A9-Pierre_Gignac.jpg

if you asked marseille fans, most would probably tell you that he's had a shitty season. it's kind of surprising that he's actually scoring, though still far from the season that brought him to marseille from toulouse (24 goals iirc) yeah he always looks out of shape, bordeaux fans made fun of him at a game some time back by singing "un big mac pour gignac" ("a big mac for gignac"). actually, i think i might have already told that story here.

im a fan of any player who manages to sustain a high level career despite being borderline obese, however he achieves it

what of the younger players at monaco like ocampos? also read that james is getting back into form after starting slowly

and the whole cavani issue, he doesnt seem happy

dunno too much how it's going for ocampos. james has been doing quite well lately, scored a few goals and had a few assists.
cavani may not seem happy and considering the noise that's been made after his poor performance against chelsea, in his position of choice, he's not likely to feel any better

btw nakh when you posted about bielsa i thought it was a done deal. but it's not confirmed, even though it made front page of l'équipe today so this could still go the way of other classic marseille done deals like jardel coming

Really good win for Lyon. PSG mostly threatened from set pieces - look a shadow of their best when Zlatan's out. Ferri was excellent for Lyon.

coming back to gignac, burger king got in on the fun and is mocking him too. see their twitter account, announcing the opening of a new BK in marseille :
https://twitter.com/BurgerKingFR/status/456688901378162688
their message says: we've never been good with rhymes, our thing is burgers.

Berbatov just out-Berbatoved himself with the most nonchalant lob I've seen in ages.

It was exceedingly Berbatov
http://31.media.tumblr.com/c583aa46e2feb20afdf7191eac4b2d61/tumblr_n4c11hNuUM1rm4zado2_r1_400.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/e1df17a9823f21cf1140ef01b0da5627/tumblr_n4c11hNuUM1rm4zado1_400.gif

Helene Costa, first female manager to be appointed for a french professional club!

Helene Costa quit on her first day?

yup - Club president commented "oh you know how women are..."

Five red cards in Marseille vs PSG, including Neymar who left the field claiming he’d been racially abused.

Nice vs Marseille has descended into chaos. Fans throw bottles at Payet, Payet throws one back, dozens of Nice supporters pile on to the pitch to chase after him and brawl with Marseille players.

This is the second match in two weeks suspended because home fans couldn’t stop chucking stuff at visiting Marseille players and it’s crazy that the ref didn’t stop this one sooner.

Marseille players didn’t want to resume the game. Nice players were waiting on the pitch with the referees, Marseille never came back out and will lose the game 3-0.

— Julien Laurens (@LaurensJulien) August 22, 2021

Thats shameful if its carried through tbh

Is this the third or fourth Marseille march this season that has been suspended after their players were assaulted by opposing fans? I’m losing track.

Lyon / Marseille stopped after four minutes when Payet got hit by a bottle (again).