PSG are a club transformed since Arteta's French fling

The last time Paris Saint-Germain won a European trophy, a long-haired Mauricio Pochettino swapped shirts with a longhaired Roberto Baggio. It was 24 years ago, but another figure looks instantly familiar in the footage.

- RICHARD JOLLY

The first substitute PSG brought on that day in 2001 when they beat Brescia on away goals, still has the same slender build, the same haircut. Now, if Mikel Arteta gets European silverware for the second time, he will have to overcome the club with which he won his first.

Almost a quarter of a century later, both Arteta and PSG are eyeing a greater prize than the Intertoto Cup. In an era when PSG are serial Ligue 1 winners and an ever-present force in the knockout stages of the Champions League, their days in the Intertoto Cup feel still more of a curiosity. They were not even its only winners in 2001 – Aston Villa and Troyes also graduated to the Uefa Cup as a result – but it provides a snapshot of a period in time, of the Paris Saint-Germain that was.

It is unrecognisable in parts, but some of that identity lasted much longer in the French capital than Arteta himself. He joined as a teenager on an 18-month loan in 2001 and was sold by Barcelona to Rangers in 2002.

Before Arsenal beat PSG in October last year, Arteta reminisced about a roommate he described as “perfect”. They nevertheless seem the odd couple, Arteta and Ronaldinho, the control freak and the libertine. The temptation is to assume that the Brazilian would be going to bed around the time the Spaniard was getting up.