If that was sportswashing, let’s have more of it. The Champions League final, when Paris Saint-Germain vaporised Inter Milan, was a sublime game of football, mesmerising and beautiful in the PSG’s display of sustained excellence.
But the win has also generated a fair bit of anguish from many commentators. The club, you see, is owned and financed to the hilt by Qatar. And Qatar has a fairly mixed record, it might be said, on human rights, the role of women, same-sex relationships and all that. Mind you, if sportswashing is meant to be the use of sport to improve a government’s image, it’s not working that well. We still talk about Qatar’s failings – as well as those of Abu Dhabi or Saudi Arabia despite them owning Manchester City and Newcastle United, respectively.
Back to the match. How could an event so one-sided be so compelling? This was an extraordinary team performance – not just ‘there’s the megastar, get the ball to him’, but a bunch of kids working perfectly as a unit, all playing for each other, wholly committed to the plan, fluid but positionally disciplined.
We live in an atomised age, so how thrilling to see young people totally committed to a team effort – though a huge salary probably helps. Luis Enrique’s brilliant coaching has persuaded a bunch of prodigies who will have been told how special they are since they first kicked a football to find value in being part of the collective. Not that there’s anything mechanical about the PSG machine: it’s vibrant, exciting and has plenty of space for flair. If this is the shape of football in the future, I can’t wait.
Simon Yates’s extraordinary effort to win the Giro d’Italia in the penultimate stage was also both astounding to watch and very much a team effort.
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