Opinion – OM/PSG: ‘Le Classique’ in search of its lost rivalry | OneFootball

Just a few days before Olympique de Marseille/Paris Saint-Germain, one figure stands out: Le Parisien was still reporting 7,500 tickets available at the Vélodrome. For almost any other match, that information would be fairly trivial. For Le Classique, it is more troubling, because this fixture remains the symbolic peak of French football. Perhaps even more in what people expect it to be than in what it has become.

A fixture that remains huge because people refuse to treat it as ordinary

It would be tempting to draw a dramatic conclusion: Le Classique no longer makes people dream. That would be far too hasty. If several thousand tickets still being available becomes national news, it is precisely because an Olympique de Marseille/Paris Saint-Germain match is supposed to fill the Vélodrome almost by definition.

Everything surrounding the game still reflects its special status. The authorities have once again classified it at level 5, the highest degree on the risk scale, despite the planned absence of Parisian supporters. The LFP even chose this match to launch its special event-ball initiative reserved for five major Ligue 1 fixtures. The ceremony is still there. So is the symbolism.

And thankfully so. A Classique does not lose several decades of history because ticket sales slow down for a few days. The Vélodrome, Paris, Marseille, the memories built up over time, and everything this rivalry brings are still enough to put the date at the very top of the calendar.

The problem is not the past, but what the present can no longer produce

What has worn away lies elsewhere. A true sporting rivalry cannot simply be declared. It is born when each side can genuinely stop the other from achieving its goals, when the clash goes beyond the pride of a single night and carries real weight over the course of a season. That is precisely what Le Classique no longer produces.

The paradox is all the crueler because Marseille briefly reminded everyone last season what this rivalry could become again. OM beat Paris 1-0 at the Vélodrome, ending a fourteen-year winless run at home in Le Classique. At last, a crack. At last, something that could feed the next chapter.

But Paris then beat Marseille in the Trophée des Champions before handing them a 5-0 defeat at the Parc des Princes, the biggest win in the history of this fixture. So within a few months, the hope of a renewed balance and the reality of the gap coexisted.

That may be where the discomfort lies. OM-PSG is still approached as the summit because no other French fixture carries quite the same symbolic weight. But year after year, people also wait for Marseille to regain enough consistency for that summit to also be the top of the table, of ambition, and of the balance of power.

Paris cannot create its own rival

Of course, the counterpoint must also be accepted. A rivalry does not require two perfectly equal champions. A white-hot Vélodrome, an unexpected Marseille win, or a few tense encounters can be enough to instantly revive what makes Le Classique special. Last season was a reminder of exactly that.

But that cannot indefinitely replace lasting sporting competition. Marketing can produce a special match ball, television can stage its marquee event, and the authorities can deploy an exceptional security operation. None of those things can create the only thing this fixture truly needs: the uncertainty that comes from two clubs fighting for the same summit.

So those 7,500 tickets probably do not mean Le Classique is dead. Rather, they are a reminder of how much it still lives on a promise. The promise that one day Marseille will again be strong enough that Paris no longer goes to the Vélodrome merely to face its great historic rival, but also its great sporting rival. Le Classique does not need to be reinvented. It has simply been waiting too long for OM to give it what PSG cannot provide on its own: a true rivalry.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.