Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, a 36-year-old striker, has just signed to return to Olympique de Marseille one year after leaving for Al-Qadsiah. At a press conference, he was asked to comment on OM’s ability to compete with Paris Saint-Germain. It was an opportunity to make some strong statements.
“When you want to compete with the best, you aim high. You have to give yourself the means to compete with Paris, and the club is currently giving itself those means. Returning to the Champions League at the Vélodrome too, we don’t know what might happen. I want to go as far as possible, I’ve never gone further than the quarter-finals but we’ll see, especially with this new Champions League format, a lot of things are possible.”
It’s easy to understand this message. It’s even quite welcome, since we prefer to have ambitious opponents. We must also give Aubameyang credit for the fact that the Marseille club is having an interesting transfer window. There will certainly be a great team this season. And the striker had to point that out. It would have been very badly received at OM if the player had made a defeatist statement.
Now, we can’t say that there is still any particular concern on the part of PSG after a particularly successful season collectively. We have already seen several years of talk about great competition, but with easily disappointing results.
It would be better if the championship were indeed stronger, with AS Monaco in particular also showing ambition. Competition can only be good for pushing oneself to progress and for the taste of titles won. Even if there might be a few less of them. It’s up to the Parisians to approach this new year well, as their opponents will want to bring them down.
