3 Targets for PSG to Hit in 2016
The 2015-16 season is shaping up to be a very successful one for French champions Paris Saint-Germain at present.
Unbeaten in domestic competitions so far, their only blemish on an otherwise spotless campaign has been a 1-0 defeat away at Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League.
With the Ligue 1 term 22 games old, Laurent Blanc’s men are keeping an incredibly impressive pace and could realistically be crowned Le Championnat kings for a fourth consecutive season as early as March.
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The first of three targets this term must be to finish the campaign without defeat. No Ligue 1 team has ever managed to go an entire season without a single loss, and the closest that any side has come to such a feat was FC Nantes back in the 1994-95 season with a 32-game unbeaten run.
Les Canaris lost just once in Le Championnat that term, and considering their dominant form so far, one of PSG’s objectives for this year must be to beat that record.
Les Parisiens’ current squad is the strongest French domestic football has seen for a long time—arguably ever. Blanc and his players have the chance to make history this campaign, and in truth, they will not even have to be at their very best in order to do so.
Once the Ligue 1 title has been wrapped up, Le President’s men will be able to turn their attention to the other fronts they are fighting on.
PSG have already reached a third consecutive Coupe de la Ligue Final and will take on Lille OSC in late April at Stade de France for a record sixth title. The capital club are also advancing well in the Coupe de France and host Olympique Lyonnais in the round of 16 in a few weeks’ time.
If the defending champions can dispose of Bruno Genesio’s side—one of their most serious rivals for this season’s title—then their passage from the quarter-finals onwards should be relatively straightforward.
The second of PSG’s targets for 2016 should be to replicate last season’s previously unprecedented domestic clean sweep.
This current squad is stronger and better equipped to make deep runs across each front they are fighting on this campaign, and—crucially—their domestic rivals are also weaker this term.
Finally, the third—and arguably most important from the point of view of the club's leaders—of PSG’s 2016 targets will be to finally go beyond the quarter-finals of the Champions League after three consecutive finishes in the last eight of the competition.
The runaway Ligue 1 leaders will face familiar English Premier League foes Chelsea in the last 16, and the French giants will be confident that they can knock the Blues out again after disposing of them at the same stage last season.
Currently, PSG’s campaign appears to be geared towards taking care of their Ligue 1 duties as quickly as possible so that the team can focus on the latter stages of the Champions League with the intention to break into the last four.
Because of this focus, Blanc appears happy to let one of the two domestic cups go—potentially jeopardising the second of the three targets for 2016 mentioned in this article.
If PSG fail to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League and the team fail to win both domestic cups, this will be viewed as failure on the French tactician’s part.
However, succeeding in making the Ligue 1 juggernaut one of Europe’s final four this term will mean that any failure on the domestic cup front will gladly be overlooked.
Essentially, PSG’s targets for 2016 are to win everything or go as far as possible in all the competitions the team are involved in.
The capital club are expected to wrap up the Ligue 1 title as swiftly as possible, but the overriding focus at Parc des Princes is on Champions League success.
Winning all domestic competitions is something that is expected by the club’s ambitious Qatari owners, but they would happily trade some of that domestic dominance for continental prestige.
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