As Paris revels, PSG fans find a sense of belonging

Paris is agog, awash and cannot contain itself from frequent drive-bys in souped-up Mercs, beat-up hatchbacks and motorcycles, horns and hooters tooting and shouts of "champions" to anyone who will listen. Or rather, make that France is agog following Paris St-Germain's triumph at the Champions League final.

- Sharda Ugra

Paris is agog, awash and cannot contain itself from frequent drive-bys in souped-up Mercs, beat-up hatchbacks and motorcycles, horns and hooters tooting and shouts of "champions" to anyone who will listen. Or rather, make that France is agog following Paris St-Germain's triumph at the Champions League final. PSG are only the second French club to win the CL title following Olympic Marseille in 1993.

Eighteen-year-old friends Tom Gene and Corbinaud Mathis from La Rochelle travelled three plus hours from the south-eastern coast and managed to somehow get into the watch party at the Parc des Princes with 48,000 other fans. They paid €80 for €40 tickets, and after PSG wiped the floor with Inter 5-0, found themselves in tears. Frenchmen have no issues with crying, non? "For sport," Gene said, "we are allowed."

Brothers Lucas and Tomas Duval enjoying beers at a bistro a stone's throw from Parc des Princes are from La Rouen on the Normandy coast and belong to a family of PSG fans — "we are fans since we've been born 25 years ago, before us our father and our grandfather." The Parc des Princes is getting ready to welcome the team on Sunday evening and the club's Megastore has a queue that stretches by a modest calculation at least 400m around its facade.