This is the match that traditionally marks the start of a new season. PSG and Nantes are competing for the 27th Champions Trophy, Sunday July 31, in Tel Aviv (Israel), a few days before the first match of the Ligue 1 calendar. A first official outing for the PSG of Christophe Galtier, reigning champion, against the Canaries, winners of the last Coupe de France, and ready to fill their wardrobe with a new cup. Franceinfo: sport takes stock of what you need to know before the meeting.
A year later, back to Tel Aviv
The Champions Trophy is making a comeback in Israel. A year after the 2021 edition, which had already seen Lille and Parisians cross swords in Tel Aviv, the Bloomfield Stadium is once again hosting the meeting in the summer of 2022. Since its first edition abroad, in Montreal in 2009, the competition has traveled to almost every continent. After the Canadian city, she successively put her suitcases in Tunisia, Morocco, the United States, Gabon, China, Austria, and therefore in Israel for the past two seasons.
Who will win the 1st trophy of the 22/23 season?
@PSG_insidechampion of France 21/22 @FCNanteswinner of the @French Cup 21/22
⌚️ Sunday July 31 – 8 p.m.
️ Bloomfield Stadium
@PrimeVideoEN
➡️ https://t.co/Arl8AcMzMQ#TDC2022 #PSGFCN pic.twitter.com/HnUcNb8bc8
— Ligue 1 Uber Eats (@Ligue1UberEats) July 27, 2022
A trip that sparked a little controversy, for the destination too far from French soil. The group of Nantes supporters of the Loire Brigade has thus decided not to return to Israel to follow their club, citing a “choice of belief” facing a “mercantile vision”.
A great first for Christophe Galtier
This will be one of the attractions of the meeting. Sunday evening, Christophe Galtier will take his place on the PSG bench for the first time in an official match. After four wins in as many friendly matches, the 55-year-old technician is facing his first test in Parisian colours. The most successful club in the competition (10 wins), PSG remains on a setback against Lille in the 2021 edition.
Ambitious, Christophe Galtier has checked this meeting among the objectives and is aiming for nothing other than victory, as he assured in an interview with L‘Crew on July 15: “There are three national titles, we have to win them. We have to break records and, with modesty, I will be honest: I came to Paris to win everything”. He can count on two of his summer recruits, Vitinha and Nordi Mukiele.
Nantes finds the French summits
Three months after the final of the Coupe de France, Nantes will taste a new match at the highest level. By winning their first trophy since 2001 by dominating OGC Nice at the Stade de France on May 7, the Canaries have given themselves the right to compete for an eighth Champions Trophy, the first since 2001 as well.
▸ Antoine Kombouaré speaks before the trip to Tel Aviv for the Trophée des Champions on Sunday against @PSG_inside.#PSGFCN I #TDC2022
— FC Nantes (@FCNantes) July 29, 2022
That summer, the Nantes, crowned with their title in Ligue 1, had outclassed Strasbourg at La Meinau (4-1). Twenty-one years later, Antoine Kombouaré’s men will do everything to play a bad trick on the Parisians, whom they beat last February in the last clash between the two clubs (3-1).
With Lionel Messi, an ever more international trophy
At 35, Lionel Messi will discover a new competition. Arriving in Paris at the end of last summer, after the 2021 edition, the Argentinian will be traveling to Israel this time. His presence should bring new exposure to the meeting, which precisely plays an international standard role for French football.
The arrival of the seven-time Ballon d’Or in the capital has already attracted new international broadcasting contracts for Ligue 1, in India and Vietnam for example, which had stopped broadcasting the French championship. Sunday evening, the match between Paris and Nantes will be broadcast in more than 170 territories (compared to 141 in 2017).