PSG to honor it’s African players, ex Gunner leaves Budapest

In the space of one year, PSG has a chance to win their second Champions League trophy and to do it two times in a row. The Parisians decided to enhance the already glorious moment by honoring their past and former players. Since Qatar bought the club in 2011, they have been (almost consecutively) champions of France 12 times but before that, other clubs ruled the French football and PSG were not even considered favorites to win the title. Times have changed and the club decided to honor their former players and take 34 of them to Budapest to watch the final against Arsenal.

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"From the player who came through the club's youth system to the one who has worn the Parisian colors on the biggest international stages, each embodies a part of Paris Saint-Germain's legacy and has contributed, in their own way, to building the PSG of today" the club said in a statement.

The most famous among them are Ronaldinho, David Luiz, Claude Makelele, Blaise Matuidi , Presnel Kimpembe (who won the title last year), and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the club's third-highest scorer with 156 goals, behind Cavani (200) and Mbappe (256). But among others, there are a few ‘silent’ heroes who played in those not so glory moments and seven of them are Africans.

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Amara Diane is one of them as the Ivory Coast forward played for the Parisians from 2006-2008 and scored 20 goals in 71 appearances. Senegalese Boukary Drame came from the youth team and played in Paris until 2007, while Cameroonian Patrick Mboma played for PSG in the early 90’s. At beginning of the 21st century, another PSG youth, a Nigerian Bartholomew Ogbeche had a chance to play for the senior team and he will be in Budapest, just like other Africans like Eric Rabesandratana (Madagascar), Sammy Traore (Mali) and Siaka Tiene (Ivory Coast).

On the other side, PSG fans made one ex Gunner miss the finals in Budapest. Samir Nasri used to play for Olympique Marseille too, and that was his capital ‘sin’ for the Parisians. Faced with enormous insults from the fans on the pitch, which also happened during the semi-final game with Bayern Munich, the former Arsenal player decided to come back from Budapest and will be present in Paris, but in the studio of Canal+. On the sidelines in Hungary, David Ginola, former Parisian, will be the consultants for Canal+ and will be accompanied by Robert Pires, who played in the Champions League final 2006 with Arsenal.