Paris and Its Football Think Big Again, 1 Month On

“Revons plus grand,” or its English equivalent, “Dream Bigger,” the modern-day motto of Paris Saint-Germain, still seems to be on every second corner of the Parc des Princes. When you walk through the door and up the stairs to the stadium's media room, the French version of it stares back at you from the top, letting you know exactly the scale of ambition that you're about to witness.

What unfolded before us on the pitch after taking that walk on Sunday night left one in no doubt as to what extent that vision has already been realised.

PSG pulverised Lyon—the team that ran them close in the Ligue 1 title race until the last couple of weekends of the last campaign—5-1. Granted, the visitors were missing a raft of their best players, but the gap between the two teams was still jaw-dropping.

As Paris extended their lead at the top of the table to 17 points (astonishingly, second-placed Angers are closer to the bottom three than they are to the champions, points-wise), perhaps the most remarkable aspect of their triumph is that they only had to play well for 15 or 20 minutes.

Those moments when they did—Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s sublime moment of skill to sucker Henri Bedimo into conceding a penalty, or pretty much everything Marco Verratti did in his 20-minute cameo—were as good as anything you'll see.

Christophe Ena/Associated Press

This meant more, however, than PSG flexing their muscles on the domestic stage for the umpteenth time this season. Sunday marked a month since the horror of the terrorist attacks in Paris. As the city edges back towards some sort of normality, this was the last leg in a big football weekend for the city, with the final draw for Euro 2016 having taken place the night before at the Palais des Congres.

That had been met with high excitement in the city, and in France in general. The state of emergency that followed the attacks had meant restarting football with the handbrake on, with away supporters not allowed to attend games, as reported by the Guardian. Fans have largely understood, sympathizing with the authorities' argument that the police were too thinly spread.

That ban is only being (partially) lifted this week, with a programme of Coupe de la Ligue matches including PSG, Lyon, Monaco and Saint-Etienne.

The draw for a major championship is always the moment when a far-off aim turns from a speck in the distance to a burgeoning reality; the moment when you pore over the schedule and the venues to discuss highlights with friends and plan trips. That sense was intensified here, with the prospect of celebration a much-needed tonic.

Before the Euro draw, the Ile-de-France region's director of tourism Francois Navarro had told L'Equipe's print edition of his hope of the capital drawing another big fish (as well as France, with the opener always set for Stade de France) to boost tourism, which has dropped by 24 percent in the last month. He got his wish, with Germany playing Poland at Saint-Denis in one of the first round's highlights, before they take on Northern Ireland at the Parc to conclude the group.

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

Arguably even more positive news for the capital are fixtures at the Parc for Turkey (against Croatia) and Portugal (Austria). These are two countries with sizeable expat populations in the Hexagon, and in Paris in particular; the number of expats and their descendants in France is in excess of one million from each country.

In the case of Portugal, it rouses memories of Lille's Champions League game against Benfica in November 2005, held at the Stade de France. The match set a national attendance record for a European match in the country: a staggering 76,000, as per UEFA.com's Matthew Spiro. It was down to an estimated 40,000 Benfica fans, who made it like a home game for Ronald Koeman's side. A repeat taste of that vibrant atmosphere would be something special.

On the pitch, the presence of Cristiano Ronaldo is already engendering excitement, but the real prize, of course, is that Zlatan's Sweden are opening their campaign at Stade de France, against the Republic of Ireland, on June 13.

That sense of cultural cross-pollination is important, even with the finals still months away, particularly after gains made by the National Front in the first round of regional elections last week, even if they were defeated in the second stage, as per BBC News. As this column wrote in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, football can't provide a solution to all society's problems, but as a very visible part of society, it still has its role to play.

That—to return to Sunday night—is why PSG's latest display of excellence matters. On the surface, Paris is defiant, with a cavalcade of Christmas lights over the Gard du Nord as you arrive, and the same on the Champs-Elysees, where waves of families delight in the rides and stalls of the Christmas market. People are determined to live life.

Yet it's still raw, too. The process of entry into the Parc is a laborious one (necessarily so at the moment, many would reasonably argue), comprising two separate barrier ticket checks and body searches before one even reaches the turnstile, and the prohibition of any sort of hand luggage for spectators, including rucksacks.

As tournament organiser Jacques Lambert told RTL (via BBC Sport), security represents a huge challenge ahead of the Euros.

Some of the habitual spectacle of a PSG home game has been scaled down, too. The red carpet that greeted the home players in a rock star entrance has gone, and appears unlikely to return.

On the pitch, though, the party goes on. This wasn't just PSG showing their overwhelming superiority to the rest. It was bringing back a little more joy to the city, in the sort of flamboyant style that it demands. Dry ice greeted the goals. In the stands, the age-old, familiar, booming refrain of “Paris est magique,” ping-ponged by the Boulogne and Auteuil virages to one another, carries more of a resonance now than it ever did.  

This week’s Champions League draw, pitting Laurent Blanc and his team against Chelsea once more, is another highlight on a 2016 calendar to relish for the capital. Paris, and its football community, is still in the early stages of healing but is embracing the task with gusto.