It was bound to happen at some point or the other. Rich teams like Paris Saint-Germain aren’t about local identity or anything similar. It’ about big names, big money and titles. If it means sacrificing integrity, so be it, and so the French champions became the first Ligue 1 side ever to start a match without a single French player in the lineup, rectifying that issue at half time when Blaise Matuidi came in for Thiago Motta.

While there seems to be something of an uproar about it in France at the moment, it’s hard to say it is surprising. PSG don’t invest too much money in the local market, instead opting to buy the best of what the rest of Europe and South America has to offer. The top French players? They usually don’t stay in France. Newcastle, for example, seem like a growing and quite successful French colony in Northeast England.

How successful? The only team in Europe to get more goals from their French players is Olympique Lyon, – a side with a name that commands respect and makes you think of success, but in truth this is a side that’s becoming something of a feeder club, struggling to cope with the changes, professional and economic in France, brought upon them by PSG and followed by Monaco, who seemed destined to win every possible title as long as the cash keeps coming.