At P.S.G., a Different Kind of Champions League Frustration

Paris St.-Germain has dominated home competitors for almost a decade, its group strengthened yearly by the signings of pricy stars from world wide. However the title it covets most, the Champions League, stays elusive.

That description applies, in fact, to the Paris St.-Germain males’s soccer group. Nevertheless it additionally matches the membership’s handball group, its sporting doppelgänger of kinds. Just like the extra distinguished soccer group, the handball facet by no means appears to lose in France. And just like the soccer group, it simply can’t appear to recover from its ultimate hurdle in European competitors.

The lads’s soccer group has gained seven of the final 9 French league titles and is nearly sure to win this yr as properly. However its European report is spotty for a group of its monumental wealth: It has appeared in 10 straight Champions Leagues, however has just one runner-up end, in 2020, and one different semifinal look to point out for it.

The handball group wears the identical blue uniforms and has — maddeningly, if you happen to’re P.S.G. — trod the identical path. It has gained seven straight league titles, and this yr there hardly appears to be any level in watching its home video games: It’s 21-0 and operating away with one other championship.

However its Champions League frustration will sound acquainted: During the last eight seasons, Paris St.-Germain has by no means failed to achieve at the least the quarterfinals, however it has solely as soon as superior to the ultimate. That yr, 2017, it endured a crushing 24-23 loss to Vardar of Macedonia, a sport selected the final shot.

Qatar Sports activities Investments acquired Paris St.-Germain and its soccer group in 2011, and added the handball group — which had beforehand operated as a part of a partnership with the membership — to its totally owned portfolio in 2012. Whereas they have been stable first-division groups for a lot of their histories, neither the soccer group nor the handball group had been a worldbeater. However a flood of cash from the brand new Qatari house owners aimed to vary that.

Paris St.-Germain has for years signed worldwide soccer stars, together with the 2 most costly transfers in historical past: Neymar for $262 million in 2017 and Kylian Mbappé for $216 million in 2018. The largest current arrival was Lionel Messi, the Argentine midfielder who was a key a part of the Barcelona group that humiliated P.S.G. within the Champions League in 2017.

The handball group — working with a decrease profile and a smaller finances — turned to the identical playbook by buying two gamers acclaimed as among the many biggest of all time: Mikkel Hansen, the Danish Olympic gold medalist, who has performed with the group since 2012, and Nikola Karabatic, a three-time Olympic gold medalist for France, who was signed in 2015.

When Hansen was re-signed in 2017 for an additional 5 years, the P.S.G. govt Jean-Claude Blanc advised Handball Planet: “The extension of Mikkel confirms the standing of Paris St.-Germain handball on the world stage and our ambition for the approaching seasons.” Whereas title after title in France has been good, although, that ambition additionally features a European title or two.

Paris St.-Germain’s quest for a Champions League title this season sustained a blow when Hansen, a three-time world participant of the yr, contracted phlebitis after which a pulmonary embolism. He’s out for the season and plans to return to a Danish membership subsequent season at age 34. Paris St.-Germain begins the playoff spherical towards Elverum of Norway on Wednesday.

Ought to P.S.G. handball defeat Elverum after which Kiel of Germany, it could advance to a single-elimination ultimate 4 in Cologne, Germany, in June, its sixth journey to that stage in seven years.

By then, loads of opposing followers will once more have accused Paris St.-Germain of paying for European glory. The funds have been made. However the glory stays — for now — simply out of attain.