Ruthless PSG show Donnarumma the door while enigma Pogba is back: Ligue 1 season preview

This time last year, Paris Saint-Germain were preparing for life without the totemic Kylian Mbappe, finally installed at the Real Madrid he had been itching to join.

No matter, suggested manager Luis Enrique, this post-Mbappe PSG, less channelled around one superstar, would become a stronger side. “The star now is the team,” declared club president Nasser Al Khelaifi.

Sure enough, PSG, who have enjoyed huge spending power since their Qatari backers took control of the club in 2011, finished the season with the prize they crave most, a maiden Uefa Champions League, achieved via a 5-0 rout of Inter Milan in the final, with four English Premier League clubs defeated en route.

The post-Mbappe heroes were many, chief among them goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma for his crucial saves in the knockout phase.

Donnarumma has now been informed he is disposable. The Italy captain has a year left on his contract, is in demand elsewhere but his imminent exit is not simply about PSG making a hard business decision.

While Luis Enrique has praised Donnarumma’s shot-stopping excellence, the coach’s assessment of his footwork, his comfort receiving and distributing the ball has not always been positive. And those skills are essential for Luis Enrique’s vision.

David de Gea, who was Spain’s standout number one keeper for a long period until Luis Enrique, as Spanish national coach, dropped him in favour of a more confident passer, would testify to that.

Big pressure then on 23-year-old Lucas Chevalier, signed by PSG from Lille, to fill Donnarumma’s big gloves and show he’s more balletic and precise with the ball at his feet.

Chevalier’s debut, Wednesday night’s see-saw Uefa Super Cup final against Tottenham Hotspur, featured an error in conceding the first goal, but he was spared lingering comparisons with Donnarumma by finishing victorious on penalties after PSG had recovered from 2-0 down to force the tiebreaker.

Chevalier saved the third Spurs spot-kick with PSG trailing 2-1 in the shoot-out. They went on to win it 4-3. “I must say I’m very happy with the way he ended the match,” said a relieved Luis Enrique.

“That was important. He showed the character to be a PSG player. We’re sure of the direction we are moving in, looking to get even better and we believe we’ll be stronger this season.”

Donnarumma will hear the echoes there of what was said about the departing Mbappe.

The Pogba Enigma

Next month, a collection of jewellery endorsed by Paul Pogba, star of France’s 2018 World Cup triumph, will be presented in a Monte Carlo boutique. Some time further along the line, Ligue 1 will discover if Pogba can still shine as a footballer.

He has signed a two-year contract with Monaco, club and player determined a full stop be put on a dispiriting, alarming period in the player’s life and career and that a supremely gifted midfielder can return to his old powers.

He played his last professional match almost two years ago, his second spell with Juventus coming to an abrupt end after he failed a routine doping test and received, after an appeal, an 18-month ban.

While he served his suspension, a French court heard how Pogba had suffered violent threats from a criminal group including his brother Mathias and childhood friends. Mathias and five others were found guilty of attempted extortion.

His comeback with Monaco, a prestigious though relatively low-key club in terms of attendances in the Stade Louis II, makes Pogba feel “like a kid who’s just signed pro”.

He admits to impatience for his return to action, but there is caution about when he will be deemed match-fit for a Ligue 1 debut. It will be at least a month yet, says Adi Hutter, the Monaco head coach, adding that Pogba is “doing a really good job with his rehab”.

Once he is back, Ligue 1 will appreciate Pogba’s presence. The league has struggled, in a changing media landscape, to push up the broadcast-rights value of their top division in recent seasons, with PSG’s dominance hurting the league’s competitive edge and the best French players tending to migrate abroad.

Having Pogba on the cast list, along with France’s all-time record international goalscorer, Olivier Giroud – signed by Lille after 13 seasons away from French club football in England, Italy and the US – spreads some stardust beyond the capital.

Paris pairs up

It takes about 15 strides to get from the perimeter of the Parc des Princes, home of PSG, to the outer wall of the Stade Jean-Bouin.

It would be even fewer paces if you are the size of Donnarumma, although recent events mean he is very unlikely to be making the very short trip to what is now Europe’s cosiest top-flight derby.

For the first time in 36 years, Ligue 1 has a proper all-capital rivalry and if Paris FC’s promotion to the upper division, and relocation to the Jean-Bouin, will not yet have PSG worried at this very local threat to their global status, the city will take the development as long overdue.

Besides being head and shoulders above the rest of French football for most of the last decade, PSG have had to use a long telescope to view another venue where a threat to their pre-eminence might emerge from.

Having a competitor on their very doorstep will seem surreal, not least because the 20,000 Jean-Bouin currently houses a PSG superstore, where, when The National dropped in last week, paraphernalia connected to PSG’s historic first Champions League triumph was being retailed at a busy rate.

Paris FC intend initially to consolidate their Ligue 1 status. But they are armed with ambitious new backers.

Last year, with promotion from Ligue 2 looking likely, the Arnault family, whose interests include the LVMH luxury goods empire, bought a majority stake, a deal which incorporated a stake for Red Bull, who have a long-term relationship with various European clubs, such as RB Leipzig and Salzburg and whose head of global football is the former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

With that access to funds and expertise, it should not be long before PSG find their neighbours turning noisy.

Aubameyang’s Marseille boomerang

Perhaps the least joyful place to be on the last day of May was Marseille. Around the city were hundreds of Inter Milan jerseys – a show of fierce support, for an evening at least, towards PSG’s opponents in the Champions League final.

Much was at stake for fans of Olympique Marseille. Until May 31st, OM had been the only French club ever to have won the European Cup. PSG's victory meant Marseille are no longer unique for that. But they intend to give their rivalry with PSG greater bite over the next nine months.

Under the watch of Mehdi Benatia, the former Morocco international who is OM’s director of football, Marseille have in 2025 lured Amine Gouiri, the Algeria striker, to the club – with huge success: Gouiri struck 10 goals in his first 14 OM appearances – captured the sought-after Brazilian winger Igor Paixao and reunited Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with the Marseille jersey.

Aubameyang, whose mazy career journey in his 30s has taken him from Arsenal to Barcelona then to Chelsea, is back for a second spell at Marseille, having left in the summer of 2024 to join Al Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia.

Fans in the main are pleased to see ‘Auba’ again, as part of a strong attacking roster – and to hear him promise, that at 36, “the pace is still there – and so are the goals.”