Liverpool and PSG Reportedly Set for Glamour Friendly During Summer
Liverpool will reportedly meet French giants Paris Saint-Germain in late July in a blockbuster friendly during PSG’s Asian summer tour.
With both sides currently sitting top of their respective divisions, it could be a showdown between the champions of France and the champions of England in a mouth-watering occasion in the East.
French journalist Jonathan Johnson drew attention to Le Parisien's report on the proposed friendly arrangement:
The two sides last met competitively in the 1996-97 campaign, so the friendly will mark something of a rare occasion.
With the likes of Luis Suarez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Daniel Sturridge, Edinson Cavani and Steven Gerrard set to be on show, the match has all the ingredients of being one of the most exciting pre-season friendlies scheduled this year.
Liverpool centre-back Mamadou Sakho will face his former club for the first time if the friendly goes ahead, as Johnson tweeted:
Upon leaving PSG for Anfield, Sakho spoke to the official club website, where he appeared happy to be swapping blue for red:
“I'm delighted to be here. I'd like to thank everyone for the welcome. I came here because the project that is in place at Liverpool interests me. I'm really looking forward to playing my first game.”
Said project at Liverpool was right to excite Sakho, who is now just five matches away from claiming a Premier League winners’ medal in his first season in England.
Liverpool's target this season was to qualify once again to mix it up with Europe’s elite in next season’s Champions League, where they could once again meet PSG.
The Parisian side are 13 points clear at the top of Ligue 1, and are still odds on to progress into the semi-finals of this season’s Champions League after a convincing 3-1 win over Chelsea in the quarter-final first leg at Parc des Princes.
Sakho is one of two major players to have had a foot in both camps, with striker Nicolas Anelka also representing both sides during his fruitful career.
According to SoccerBase, Anelka scored 10 league goals for PSG from 2000 to 2002, before going out on loan to Anfield, where he found the net a further four times in the Premier League.
However, even Anelka’s ability doesn’t compare to that of the mercurial talent of Liverpool and PSG’s best. Watching Suarez and Ibrahimovic on the same pitch is any football fan’s dream, and come July, that dream may well come true.
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