PSG eye becoming France’s first ‘Invincibles’

PARIS: Paris Saint-Germain can wrap up another Ligue 1 title this weekend and are also closing in on the first ever unbeaten season in the top flight of French football.

PSG play host to relegation-threatened Angers on Saturday knowing a draw will be enough for them to secure their 11th French championship triumph in the last 13 years. It is a long period of dominance which began quickly after the takeover of the club by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011.

The financial gap between PSG and the rest of France now appears unbridgeable, and Luis Enrique´s team are currently a huge 21 points clear at the top of the table with seven games of the season to play.

For them to miss out on the title now, PSG would have to lose every remaining game and Monaco would have to win all of theirs and also oversee an enormous swing in goal difference. Put simply, that is not going to happen, and the Parisians will hope to finish the job in front of their own supporters before switching their focus to their Champions League quarter-final first leg at home to Aston Villa next Wednesday.

This midweek PSG secured their place in the final of the French Cup, surviving a scare by coming from two goals down to beat Ligue 2 side Dunkerque 4-2 and set up a clash with Reims on May 24.

They have not lost any of their last 38 matches against domestic opponents across all competitions since a 3-1 defeat at home to Toulouse last May. The likes of Arsene Wenger´s Arsenal, Juventus, Celtic and, just last season, Bayer Leverkusen have all gone through domestic league campaigns without losing a game in the 21st century.

In France, Nantes have come the closest, going unbeaten through their first 32 matches of the 38-game season as they took the title in 1994/95. PSG have played 27 of 34 matches in this Ligue 1 campaign, and surely should remain unbeaten as long as they do not become distracted by the Champions League.

“We are not unbeatable, we are not invincible, we are not film heroes,” insisted Luis Enrique after Tuesday´s win against Dunkerque. “We are just a football team. Perfection does not exist and we are not perfect.”

Yet PSG, with the likes of Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue and Achraf Hakimi in outstanding form, should not need to be perfect to keep their current run going domestically. After this weekend, three of their final six Ligue 1 matches will be against sides presently in the bottom six.

A home game against Champions League hopefuls Nice and a trip to in-form Strasbourg are the toughest remaining assignments on the domestic front. The 22-year-old London-born striker, who recently made his debut for the Danish national team, has enjoyed a stunning start to life at Monaco since joining the principality club in January.

Recruited from Sturm Graz in Austria, the former Arsenal youngster has scored 12 goals in his first 10 Ligue 1 appearances, including three hat-tricks. His strike in last week´s Cote d´Azur derby against Nice left him with 11 goals from five home games with his new club, but he has just one on the road heading into this weekend´s trip to Brest.