A riyal for the thoughts of Neymar, or a dirham for Marco Verratti’s as they watch, from their villas in the Arabian Gulf, the Paris Saint-Germain they used to define striding confidently into the penultimate round of the European Champions League. That pair stopped experiencing these sorts of May evenings during their later seasons in Paris. They’ve not got close to anything similar in their new jobs, either, what with Neymar seven months into his recuperation from the injury that interrupted his career with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal and Verratti struggling to lift Al-Arabi higher than fifth in the Qatar Stars League.
They’ll be hearing all the talk that PSG, in their absence, have become a Qatar-funded lean machine, free of superstar aura. If that exaggerates