PSG and Monaco, contrasting worlds ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League play-off second leg | OneFootball

As PSG and Monaco meet on Wednesday in the Champions League play-off second leg at 21:00, the contrast in their daily environments and matchday atmospheres could hardly be sharper.

L'Équipe notes the split from the tranquil climb to La Turbie, sea on the horizon and the Principality below, to Poissy’s roundabouts, shopping centre and a campus by the motorway, a divide mirrored by Stade Louis II and the Parc des Princes.

Édouard Cissé, PSG 1997-2007 and Monaco 2003-2004, rejects the idea that a quiet crowd is an alibi. Some, like Lucas Bernardi, missed a cauldron. Others, such as Andreas Zikos, once of AEK Athens, adapted. For him, players must self-motivate.

In Monaco, he says, you can feel like a nobody among famous residents often far from football. The key is building collective momentum that carries people along, as in their 2004 run to the Champions League final.

Paris is harsher. After a defeat you stay at home, especially then, and he told PSG dressing rooms to detach from supporters’ emotions or Paris becomes complicated. Even so, living in the west of the city was calm.

Source: L'Équipe