PARIS Saint-Germain’s players and staff will hold a victory parade on the Champs-Elysees on Sunday to celebrate with their fans after emphatically ending their long wait to win the Champions League.
Coach Luis Enrique and his team including Desire Doue, the 19-year-old who lit up the final in Munich on Saturday by scoring twice in the stunning 5-0 win against Inter Milan, will also be hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
More than 100,000 people are expected to watch their heroes in the parade on Paris’ showpiece avenue after the team won the biggest prize in European club football for the first time in their history.
In a long night of wild celebrations, fans thronged the streets of the capital, letting off flares and fireworks as decades of pent-up frustration were released.
Police made nearly 600 arrests across France, the interior ministry said, after more than 200 cars were torched and police clashed with youths.
In the southwest town of Dax, a 17-year-old boy died after being stabbed in the chest.
A 23-year-old man riding a scooter in central Paris was also killed after being hit by a vehicle.
A policeman was put in an induced coma after being injured by a firework.
The parade on the Champs-Elysees will be closed to traffic and surrounded by tight security.
A victory parade by Liverpool Football Club’s players in the English city last Monday ended in horrific scenes after a car ploughed into the crowd, leaving 79 people injured.
– Drawn from Paris suburbs –
In a message on X, formerly Twitter, Macron hailed a “day of glory for PSG”.
“Bravo, we are all proud,“ he wrote. “Paris is the capital of Europe tonight.”
The margin of victory was the greatest in a final in the history of the Champions League or the European Cup that preceded it.
Many of the stars of the team, one of the youngest in the competition, are drawn from the huge football talent pool in the Paris suburbs after PSG’s Qatari owners turned their back on their former policy of signing star players like Neymar and Lionel Messi.
While Doue cemented his status as a rising star in world football, Senny Mayulu, another 19-year-old, came on as a substitute towards the end of the match and scored the fifth goal.
Mayulu said afterwards that the achievement would take time to sink in.
“I still can’t believe it, I think it will only seem real tomorrow. In the dressing room, everyone broke down in their own way, you could see it in their eyes, people were filled with joy and pride.”
Lifting the trophy on Saturday after losing in their only other appearance in the final five years ago was the result of hundreds of millions of euros pumped into PSG since Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) bought an ailing club in 2011.
“The objective now is to win again. It has taken 14 years of hard work but we are building something for the future,“ PSG president Nasser al-Khelaifi said.
