Nine years of friendly talk culminate in PSG and Flamengo finally clashing, settling years of anticipation on the grandest stage.
Paris Saint-Germain will face Flamengo this Wednesday in the Intercontinental Cup final, nine years after considering facing them in a friendly.
On Saturday night, following Flamengo's victory against Pyramids FC in the Intercontinental Cup semifinal, PSG's Brazilian X account unearthed a tweet dated April 9, 2016. A tweet in which the @PSGbrasil account set a date with its Rio counterpart, considered the most popular club in Brazil.
For context, the deputy general manager in charge of commercial activities for PSG at the time, a certain Frederic Longuepee, had given an interview to the Brazilian media SporTV on that famous April 9, 2016, in which he discussed the close link between PSG and Brazil and suggested the possibility of facing Flamengo in a friendly.
"We have more supporters in Brazil than in Paris and France. We have 3 million fans in Brazil. Brazil occupies a special place in our hearts; it is an integral part of the club's project, and we have great confidence in it. If we play a friendly match in Brazil, it will necessarily be against Flamengo. We can convince the team to go to Brazil and play a friendly match soon," the Parisian executive said at the time, who had also mentioned during that same interview a possible transfer of Neymar to PSG, which ultimately happened a year later.
For its part, Flamengo had responded at the time to PSG by proposing to play a friendly match in January 2017 in Paris. A date that obviously did not suit the Parisian club.
Nine years later, the two clubs will finally face each other, and it will be the fifth PSG/Flamengo in history, but the first one that truly counts since the first four were only friendly matches, as recalled by the site histoiredupsg.fr:
- Friendly 75-76, PSG vs, Flamengo: 0-2
- Friendly 79-80, PSG vs. Flamengo: 3-1
- Indoor friendly 84-85, PSG vs. Flamengo: 1-3
- Friendly 91-92, PSG vs. Flamengo: 1-1, 1-3 on penalties