While a lot of the focus was on David Beckham playing for 15 minutes, Zlatan Ibrahimovic as always was the man in center-stage, scoring the clinching goal that kept PSG on top of Ligue 1 in a win over their greatest rivals, Marseille, also chucking them out of the title race.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored the second goal, but Lucas Moura, now the man in charge of everything despite being a late arrival and one of the youngest players in the squad, took responsibility for the first goal, although it was counted as an own goal. Javier Pastore is on this team, and so is Marco Verratti, but Moura seems to have taken over in pretty much every sense when PSG are on the football field.
While Moura tries to bring the class in the midfield, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is almost everything to this team. Few players in the world give you the privilege of defending while knowing you have a target up front that has no problem controlling long balls under double coverage. Few players transform a team into a title contender regardless of how much time it takes to build the squad beneath him. Ibrahimovic doesn’t mind. He scores goals, delivers assists and wins. Some players have grown around him, as Moura has been surprising in his dominance so fast, so soon. But Ibrahimovic is a one man show, destined to wander Europe, according to his words, and keep on winning titles in every league possible.
Marseille have talent, and were actually the more dangerous side in Le Classique, but Salvatore Sirigu had one of his finest performances this season at goal. While PSG had the options of Beckham and Gameiro to bring from the bench, Marseille simply have to rely on what their starters give them, which wasn’t enough to keep them in the title race.
Maybe next season it’ll be Bayern Munich, and an attempt to win a league title with another club, in another league. He has Spain, Netherlands and Italy so far, with the chances of it happening in France looking better and better. Ibrahimovic usually forces a team to rely solely on him, although that seems to be changing. Maybe his need to wander from club to club can also change, if PSG clinch the title sooner than later and perform better than expected in the Champions League.