Lille (AFP)
It's a postponement that makes people talk: Paris SG, which is recovering from its lost final in the Champions League, has obtained to postpone its resumption of Ligue 1 match in Lens, initially scheduled for Saturday, causing incomprehension in Artois and overloading the September calendar.
Has the French champion and European vice-champion obtained a pass? Returning Monday from Lisbon, where he played in the "Final 8" of C1 and lost in the final Sunday against Bayern Munich (1-0), PSG requested and obtained this postponement to September 10 at 9:00 p.m., "in accordance with the RC Lens club and the broadcaster Canal +, "the Professional Football League (LFP) reported.
It must be said that the Parisians probably did not have their head in L1, highlighting a busy schedule that prevented them from preparing properly for this second day of the championship after having been on the bridge since the resumption of training , at the end of June, then the finals of the Coupe de France (July 24) and the Coupe de la Ligue (July 31).
This postponement will nevertheless have consequences on an already congested calendar: if he will benefit from additional rest this week and the next, since international matches outside Europe, especially in South America, were canceled at the beginning of September due to health risks. , PSG must still expect a busy comeback.
- "Not the Ligue 1 PSG" -
Indeed, his trip to the Bollaert-Delelis stadium on Thursday evening September 10 is inserted between France-Croatia (September 8) for the French internationals, Kylian Mbappé and Presnel Kimpembe in the lead, and the shock against Marseille at the Parc des Princes (the 13th).
Then Paris will receive Metz on September 16 (9 p.m.), in a late match for the 1st day, before moving to Nice on the 20th (1 p.m.), i.e. four L1 matches in ten days.
Even if the RCL gave its agreement to the postponement of the meeting, this decision was not appreciated in Lens, where the mayor Sylvain Robert (PS) cracked a press release to tackle the PSG.
"PSG lost the final of the Champions League and failing to parade for its next championship meeting, would like the postponement of the match against Racing Club de Lens to recover physically", he annoys, criticizing the new date chosen.
"How to explain to Blood and Gold supporters that they will have to travel during the week to support their team because the PSG frustrated by its defeat requests a postponement of the match?", Laments Mr. Robert. Before concluding: "Let's be serious, we play Ligue 1 Uber Eats, not Ligue 1 PSG!".
- "It goes against the interests of the club" -
Same opinion on the side of Lensois supporters, who fear the sequence of the reception of PSG on September 10 then "a capital match in Lorient, a direct competitor for maintenance" on September 13.
"We are annoyed because it goes against the interests of the club," Mathieu Fourdrinier, secretary of the Lens United Federation, which brings together several associations of Lensois supporters, told AFP.
As a result of the postponement to this 2nd day, the match between Strasbourg and Nice, initially scheduled for Sunday at 5:00 p.m., was brought forward to Saturday (9:00 p.m.), on the slot occupied by Lens-PSG.
And concern is growing for the rest of the calendar, while, according to the health protocol applied to L1, the cases of Covid-19 detected within the workforce are likely to lead to new postponements of matches.
For the time being, none of the first two days of Ligue 1, which resumed on August 21 after five months of interruption due to the coronavirus pandemic, has unfolded completely.
The first weekend of competition was cut off from the meetings of Lyon (in Montpellier) and Paris SG (against Metz), mobilized by the C1 in Lisbon, as well as the poster between Marseille and Saint-Etienne, postponed due to of several cases of Covid-19 contamination at OM.
© 2020 AFP