Paris Saint-Germain

The club was founded in 1970, when Paris FC merged with Stade Saint-Germain. PSG split from Paris FC in 1972, and the latter still exists, playing in France’s second division. PSG, of course, have gone on to much greater things. The first trophies came in the 1980s, and the 1990s brought two Ligue 1 wins plus the UEFA Cup Winners Cup, essentially now the Europa League. That was in 1996 and made the reds and blues one of only two French clubs, with Marseille, to win a European trophy.

Their current domination of the French game is simply astonishing. They hold the record for wins and for domestic cup competitions, one of which they won in 2017 without conceding a single goal. They have also won the domestic quadruple four times, all since 2011. They have won Ligue 1 nine of the last 11 seasons, often several weeks before the season was officially over.

As an example of the world of Ligue 1, when PSG didn’t win in in 2017, they finished second to Monaco. PSG responded by signing Monaco’s best player, Kylian Mbappé. They didn’t win the league in 2021, either, but they only went and signed the best player in the world, Lionel Messi. They captured the title again in 2022 and 2023.

What they can’t do is succeed in the Champions League. During this time of domestic dominance, they have made it past the quarterfinals just twice, losing the 2020 final to Bayern Munich and falling in the semifinals the following season to Manchester City.

PSG contest France’s biggest rivalry, Le Classique, with Olympique de Marseille. The rivalry was born in the late 1980s, when they were the two biggest and most successful clubs in the country, regularly going at it for league and cup titles. The rivalry is also fed by other factors, such as North versus South, capital city versus provinces, and a perception of aristocracy versus working class, although PSG was actually founded as a fan-owned club and OM was founded by an aristocrat.

Marseille were set back by a match-fixing scandal in the 1990s, and since the 2011 takeover, PSG have dominated the rivalry along with the rest of French football.

Paris Saint-Germain Féminine were founded in 1971 and have been in the French top tier since 2001. They won their first league title in 2021 and have twice lost the Champions League Final — in 2015 to Frankfurt and in 2017 to bitter rivals Lyon.

Home games are in the Stade Jean-Bouin, across the street from the men’s home Parc des Princes. Check the club’s website for fixture information.

The official anthem is called “Allez Paris-Saint-Germain!” and is set to the song Go West by the Village People. They also sing “Ô Ville Lumière” (“Oh City of Light”), to the tune of “Flower of Scotland,” which is the de facto Scottish national anthem. The teams come out to a Phil Collins tune, “Who Said I Would.” And sections of the stadium often swap chants of the club’s two official mottos, “Ici, c’est Paris!” (“This is Paris!”), and “Paris est magique!” (“Paris is magical!”)

Considering the scope of the club and wealth of its owners, the 48,000-seat Parc des Princes — actually the third stadium built on the site since 1903 — is probably smaller and more basic than one might expect.

It is a two-tiered oval originally designed with rugby in mind, which has led to the seats behind the goal being farther away from the field than in many football-specific stadiums. The exterior of the stadium, with its vertical ribs, is a landmark in the local area, and the entire stadium is considered an important French architectural landmark. It also has a major highway that goes under it, which we think is pretty rare.

Before the Stade de France opened in 1998, the Parc des Princes was the French national stadium. A renovation in 2013 mainly added several thousand hospitality seats, and current plans are to increase capacity to as high as 60,000.

TOURS: You can book a stadium tour here.

GETTING THERE: The stadium is just a few minutes’ walk from a Metro station called Porte de Saint-Cloud on line 9. Porte d’Auteuil on Line 10 is also nearby.

PUBS & GRUB: As you might imagine, this being Paris, there are plenty of places to eat around the stadium. It’s really just a typical neighborhood, with apartments, shops, restaurants and bars. A bar called Les Parisiens was particularly lively when I was there, and both Brasserie de la Reine and Boulangerie de Parc had lines for takeaway food that folks were eating out in the street. A recent client of ours suggested the following:

• Stades de Deux is right next to the stadium – it’s a packed bar with a ton of outdoor standing room but very easy to get a drink before or after the game
• Aux Trois Obus is a corner bar / restaurant about a 7 minute walk from the stadium. It had a great pregame atmosphere with a lot of tables inside & outside to sit and enjoy drinks.

AROUND TOWN: Attempting a Paris travel guide here is probably both impossible and pointless; it’s one of the most famous cities in the world! The stadium is in the 16th arrondissement, one of Paris’s wealthiest neighborhoods and also the home of Roland Garros Stadium, where the French Open tennis tournament is held. There are multiple museums as well as France’s second-largest urban park, the Bois de Bologne.

Let Rick Steves give you a tour of the City of Light: