To call Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City’s Champions League quarterfinal second leg encounter on Tuesday “El Cashico” would not be entirely accurate. Both Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City spend lavishly, but are merely a part of a burgeoning clique of the nouveau riche in European football – Chelsea are an apposite example of another club grotesquely inflated by money. “El Gasico” then may be a more apt description for the encounter between the two Gulf-bankrolled clubs.

But in the first leg clash between the two teams last Wednesday, the new glitterati of European football failed to awe: first and foremost at fault was PSG’s £50 million defender David Luiz, who along with a whole cast of prima donna megabuck defenders were so error-prone in a slapstick series of howlers and scuffs, that their performance much resembled a protest against the fine art of elite defending.

Not that it was much of a surprise on a rambunctious night in Paris. Here was Belgian midfield star Kevin De Bruyne, who opened the scoring with a low drive. There was Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who deflected the ball into the net after Fernando dawdled. The towering Swede very much remains the prince at the Parc des Princes.

At the end of 90 minutes, PSG very much remained parvenues: they limped to a 2-2 draw, failing to impose their possession-based game. Rather, they dallied and dithered on the ball against a weakened Manchester City. PSG poked and probed for a crumple point at times, but without much purpose.

A seminal moment

The tie with City represents a seminal moment in PSG’s season: the quarterfinal outcome will determine Paris’s entire season, because, PSG can progress to the last four of the UEFA Champions League for the first time. The Parisians long for European glory. In fact, everything at the club is informed by a crushing sense that the Champions League must be won.

Ever since Qatar Sports Investments became a majority shareholder in PSG in 2011, the Champions League has been the club’s sole obsession. It is a prestige project: PSG’s prestige reflects on Qatar. The French club are not really owned by a fund, but rather by a country. That is not precisely true of City, where notwithstanding much countervailing evidence, the club maintain that Sheikh Mansour privately purchased City in 2008.

There is a geopolitical dimension to this clash: Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are antagonists in the Gulf. They support rival factions in the conflict-ridden Middle East. Doha financially backs Islamist groups, while Abu Dhabi adheres to a more worldly and moderate view of Islam. The UAE has cracked down on possible splinter groups and in 2014, withdrew their ambassadors from the Qatari capital in response to Doha’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Going beyond football

Geopolitics also shaped PSG’s rise: it is a public secret that former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who attended the game last week, lubricated the deal between QSI and PSG in a tale of spine-tingling global politics. Back in 2010, Sarkozy hosted a regal dinner with former UEFA president Michel Platini, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, then crown prince and now the Emir of Qatar, and the Qatari prime minister at the Élysée Palace, right on the eve of the host announcement for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Sarkozy implored Platini, then a powerful FIFA Executive Committee member, to vote for Qatar. In Germany, Angela Merkel infamously called German legend Franz Beckenbauer to vote for the tiny gulf nation as well. Platini duly switched his allegiance from the USA, one of Qatar’s rivals in the bidding for the 2022 World Cup, to Qatar. Six months later QSI bought PSG, alongside a swathe of lucrative trade deals between France and Qatar.

Nasser Al-Khelaifi is the strongman at PSG. The club’s president, who also chairs TV channel beIN Sports and Qatargas, goes back a long way with the Qatari emir Al-Thani. They played tennis together as boys. Al-Khelaifi dreams big – “Revons plus grand (Dream Bigger)” is after all one of PSG’s slogans. He would dread his European quest turning into a phantasm again.

Fading sheen?

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In France, PSG are serial champions, with a near-divine right to first spot. Coach Laurent Blanc has built a solid team around a nucleus of players: Brazilian defender Thiago Silva, Italian midfielder Marco Verratti and striker Ibrahimovic. In March, they won a fourth consecutive domestic title with two months to spare following a 9-0 victory at Troyes.

For PSG, there is nothing left to conquer at home. That lack of domestic competitiveness may harm the Parisians in the long run. They are in danger of becoming a self-parody: every season is a neat, but frighteningly identical reproduction of the previous campaign – utter domestic supremacy jostled by European elimination in the quarterfinals.

Ibrahimovic is leaving the French capital at the end of this season. PSG are intent on bringing more star power to the club: Neymar, a true global icon, has repeatedly been linked to the French champions. That, however, will not subdue the nagging fear within Parisian circles that the sheen on this glitzy club is already beginning to fade a little, that the gleam of Qatari opulence may not be lasting. To leave a real imprint, PSG must win Europe’s greatest sporting prize – "reversing" the result against Manchester City on Tuesday night would be a good start.