Teams, tales and tips – a guide to the local game
The role of the French capital in the history and development of the world game cannot be overestimated. The World Cup, the European Championship and the European Cup were devised and agreed upon in the boardrooms of Paris, which has played host to many finals.
The most memorable have involved France itself, namely the European Championship win of 1984 starring Michel Platini and the World Cup win of 1998 starring Zinedine Zidane. The venue for 1984, the Parc des Princes, and the arena built for 1998, the Stade de France, are international stages worthy of any great occasion.
For the men’s and women’s tournaments at the 2024 Olympics, the Parc did all the heavy lifting, including the showcase showdowns for each gold medal on consecutive days in August.
Each stadium hosted matches for the finals of Euro 2016, overshadowed by issues of security after the terrible events of November 2015. In a wave of city-wide attacks, terrorists attempted to infiltrate an international match at the Stade de France, explosions clearly audible during the first half. Four died, including the three suicide bombers. The two teams, France and Germany, spent the night in the stadium.
The tragedy occurred just as the domestic club game was going through a significant and seriously funded revival. Football in the French capital has changed completely due to the huge financial injection by the Qatar Investment Authority in Paris Saint-Germain, crowned champions four seasons running, then again seven times in eight years. Based at the Parc des Princes, until 2013 PSG had only claimed two titles in over 40 years.
Before Neymar arrived for a frankly bonkers €222 million in 2017 and Kylian Mbappé for €180 million a year later, the signing of Zlatan Ibrahimović and David Beckham during the 2012-13 campaign put PSG onto a level they had never known before. The first post-Qatar title win of 2013 would have been the icing on the cake – until the pre-season signing of Uruguayan forward Edinson Cavani for a then French record €64 million upped the ante again.
Bringing in Laurent Blanc for Carlo Ancelotti as coach, PSG duly beat moneyed Monaco to a second consecutive title in 2014. In 2015, they went one better and won the treble.
2016 saw PSG win the title by mid-March, sweeping everyone aside. There was no more Zlatan in 2016-17, however – the title was lost and European success still proved elusive. The astronomical money paid for Neymar moved the goalposts again, but still failed to bring PSG closer to Europe’s premier prize.
The closest the Parisians have come to claiming the trophy came in the pandemic summer of 2020, when former PSG prodigy, locally born Kingsley Coman, scored the only goal of the final for Bayern Munich against his old club. Still the third youngest player to appear for PSG, Coman is, like the Mbappé brothers and Thierry Henry before them, a product of the Parisian suburbs.
At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, 30 players had been born in the vicinity of Paris. London had produced only 12. And yet with all the talent on their doorstep PSG were pouring millions into bringing Messi and Neymar to Paris. Part of this approach is commercial, of course – Messi sells more shirts.
But with the arrival of another teenage prodigy raised in Paris, Warren Zaïre-Emery, and the departure of Mbappé after Messi and Neymar had long gone, this Ligue 1 Young Player of the Season for 2023-24 might represent a new era at the club that has dominated the French league for over a decade. Balanced out by veteran internationals of proven class, PSG might actually be creating a team whose make-up is more in tune with their supporters in the Tribune Auteuil and Tribune Boulogne.
On the city’s southern outskirts, Paris FC are based at the Stade Charléty, close to the Cité Universitaire station on RER line B. Losing on penalties in the 2024 play-offs for Ligue 1 promotion, PFC would have provided the French capital with two clubs in the top tier for the first time since the heady days of the mid 1980s. Back then, the storied Racing Club groundshared the Parc des Princes with PSG and had World Cup stars Pierre Littbarski and Enzo Francescoli in their ranks.
Now way down in the league pyramid, Racing Club, the epitome of the pre-war Parisian game, were founded in 1882. As Racing Colombes 92, the club was taken over by former film producer and ex-president of Angers, Patrick Norbert, and plays in the fifth-tier National 3, Group L, along with the reserve sides of PSG and Paris FC. Site of the national stadium before the Parc des Princes was built, Colombes – now called Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir – also staged the 1938 World Cup Final.
Until a rebuild for the 2024 Olympics, Racing played in the 1,000-capacity Stade Lucien-Choine in the same sports complex – gone are the days when the club attracted the movers and shakers of pre-war Paris.
Once Racing move back after the Games, you can access their stadium via suburban station Gare du Stade, built for the 1924 Olympics. From Gare Saint-Lazare, take Transilien suburban line J (direction Gisors) for four stops and 15mins. Colombes is a ten-minute walk away.
Opposite the main entrance to the former Colombes, now host to Racing’s popular rugby team, the Café du Stade (rue Paul-Bert 67) displays black-and-white photos of the stadium in its heyday, along with framed Racing shirts.
Elevated to Ligue 2 in 2024 for the first time in five years, Red Star are another revered club, formed by Jules Rimet, the man behind the World Cup. It’s not only about heritage and five French Cup wins from 1921 to 1942, Red Star have attracted a left-leaning cult following along the lines of Clapton FC and Dulwich Hamlet.
Red Star have also returned to their old home, the Stade Bauer in St-Ouen, just outside the Périphérique ring road north of Paris. Also referred to as the Stade de Paris, it was unveiled in 1909 with a match between Red Star and pioneering London amateurs Old Westminsters. The Stade Bauer staged the French national side several times in the run-up to World War I, then hosted three games for the 1924 Olympics, including Egypt’s shock 3-0 win over Hungary.
From 2013, stadium owners, St-Ouen council, began looking into renovating the venerable ground. Red Star’s promotion to Ligue 2 in 2015 forced the club to play home games in Beauvais, some 75km immediately north of Paris in Picardy.
Once the Stade Bauer was ready, Red Star moved back in 2017 but the debate over its future remained. While it welcomes crowds of around 2,500 for Red Star league games, the stadium was also proposed as a potential venue for the 2024 Olympics – a century after Hungary’s historic defeat there.
In the third tier Championnat National, revived Versailles and Paris 13 Atletico represent their respective communities, the club based in the shadow of the gilded royal palace playing home matches mainly at the Stade Jean Bouin next door to the Parc des Princes. Based in same-numbered arrondissement, Paris 13 Atletico are nicknamed les Gobelins after the famous local manufacturers which supplied tapestries to the Sun King. Games are played at the Stade Pelé, renamed after the death of the Brazilian star in 2024.
Getting Around
Arriving in town and local transport
Paris has two airports: Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly. CDG is 25km (16 miles) north-east of the city centre. The RER (suburban rail) line B takes 25 minutes to reach the Gare du Nord, the main train station and terminus for Eurostar services from London.
RER trains form part of the network of 16 métro lines and 14 tramways linking the city. The regular fares from CDG to the city is €9.10. Trains run every 15 minutes. A taxi to town should cost about €50.
Orly is 13km (8 miles) south of town. The Orlyval shuttle links with Antony on the RER B line (regular fare €10.90 including onward journey to town). A taxi to town should cost about €35.
Some budget airlines use Beauvais airport, which is 85km (46 miles) north of Paris, linked by buses (€16.90 online/€17) to Porte Maillot (journey time 1hr 15mins). Note that for the duration of the 2024 Olympics, buses will arrive at and depart from Paris Saint-Denis Université, on métro line 13 and tramway 1.
City transport in Paris consists of the métro, RER lines, buses and tramways. Regular fares include a single ticket at €2.15, an electronic book of ten at €17.35 and a one-day Navigo travel card for zones 1 and 2 (including the Stade de France) €8.65.
Tickets are sold in Apple and Android versions through Bonjour RATP and at all stations. Paper tickets are no longer available although the easy-to-use, rechargeable Navigo card is a godsend for those who prefer that kind of option.
G7 taxis (+33 1 41 27 66 99) can be booked online and accepts credit cards.
Where to Drink
The best pubs and bars for football fans
On either side of the Seine, in tourist-friendly arrondissements of the 5th and 6th, in edgier eastern Paris and in a particular hub around place de Clichy straddling the 9th and the 18th, you’ll find plenty of sport-focused pubs and bars appealing to a global clientele. See here for a selection of the best.
Tourist-friendly pubs fill for international rugby weekends, a major fixture on the calendar. Another common feature are long happy hours, offsetting hefty bar prices by a euro or two.
First stop should be The Pub on rue Caron in the Marais quarter, just across the Seine from Notre-Dame. Opened in 2023, it exemplifies how to run an Anglo-style, sport-focused hostelry in foreign parts. As well as the artisanal beers of Brasserie La Française from Noisy-le-Grand near Paris, it serves natural wines sourced from family-run vineyards and screens match action. Open-mic and quiz nights are also programmed, football-related art and shirts exhibited, and prizes given for beer pong. A party ambience attracts the city’s Fluminense fraternity every week.
Close by, Scottish-run the Auld Alliance puts football to the fore, backdropped by tartan, while on rue Saint-Sébastien, the Rush Bar was originally set up as a homage to the LFC legend of the same name. It remains firmly sport-focused, with four screens and a friendly staff eager to find the game you’re after if available. In between, they pour a fine Guinness and pints of Grolsch. Daytime opening hours mean they also offer set lunches, chalked up on a board outside. While you’re waiting for kick-off, there’s a pool table downstairs. Recommended.
The main bar hub for sport- and expat-friendly pubs and bars is found close to place de Clichy métro. It includes the cosy wood-panelled and flag-ceilinged Harp Bar and, over the road, French Flair, which screens sport amid classic UK rock iconography while pouring sought-after beer and serving superior platters. DJs feature, too.
A short walk away on rue des Dames, the Lush Bar has a strong Liverpool connection. As if the groovy layout and eccentrically intriguing bas-relief mural outside weren’t enough, loyalty to the Liver Bird allows the Lush Bar to stand out from the many match-screening options within easy reach.
If you’re at this end of town, make a point of checking out the Coq and Bulldog on rue de Clichy. Embracing sporting cultures each side of the Channel, this friendly hideaway is personified by its owner, Sasha, French by name, partly French by parentage, and Lancastrian by accent and football passion. French-speaking Sasha grew up among the families of famous Burnley players of the 1970s. That’s his claret scarf hanging proudly behind the bar.
An inveterate European traveller, Sasha paid his dues in various pubs around Paris before opening this cosy corner spot back in 2011. During the regular season, a Premier League game plays on one large screen and a European one on the other, with the bar and Sasha and/or his Gallic colleague in between. Ask nicely, and Sasha will show you his collection of street signs featuring the names of famous grounds.
If you’re in the tourist vortex around St-Michel, happy hour at 4pm on rue de la Huchette sees a frenzy of activity, bar staff trying to tempt in punters with promises of cheaper pints. Venues include O’Jasons, RoadHouse, Rosie’s and late-opening Shywawa round the corner.
You’d do far better, however, to stroll down to the Seine. Diagonally opposite Notre-Dame, the Galway differs greatly from the nearby tourist traps partly because of its prices – house beer is €4/€6 – but mainly thanks to its authenticity. It isn’t only the Guinness, Kilkenny and O’Hara’s, the Tayto crisps and snakebite on the drinks list, it’s the wooden counter and bar chairs that have stood the test of time. Cosy yet somehow squeezing in nine screens for sport, this cavernous hostelry also schedules live entertainment four nights a week.
Elsewhere on the Left Bank, long-established pubs dot the streets. On rue de Nevers, The Highlander has four screens upstairs and two down, with Scottish ales on draught and 80 types of whisky behind the bar. On rue Frédéric Sauton, ‘bar sportif and pub anglais’ The Long Hop shows games, as does The Bombardier on place du Panthéon, with a dozen sister Anglo-friendly operations in Bordeaux, Toulouse and Montpellier.
The 6th arrondissement, between the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Seine, is dotted with expat-friendly pubs. On rue des Quatre-Vents, The Moose Bar shows Premier League games as well as North American sports, with the whole gamut of poutines, the Québec version of chips-and-gravy, on the menu. Nearby, on rue Princesse, the Little Temple Bar promises ‘all games live’ while on the other side of Odéon, The Mazet (61-63 rue St-André-des-Arts) shows matches but beware of the enthusiastic bouncers.
To find more original, football-specific bars, you’ll have to cross town. In the 15th, close to the tram line that serves the Stade Charléty is a corner of Paris that is forever Rennes, Aux Sports sits behind a fire-red façade, amid Breton banter. Manning the counter that centrepieces the intimate interior is a friendly, garrulous follower of Stade Rennais, talking football with the regulars and occasionally pouring a glass of St Omer or sought-after, unfiltered Belgian Cuvée des Trolls.
Over in the 11th near Père-Lachaise cemetery, le céleste attracts fans of Racing Lens to this friendly little bistro that transforms into a football-focused bar once the match starts. Note the bathroom covered head-to-toe in the sang et or of RCL.
Done out in Liverpool red, the Kop Bar stands a tram stop from Porte de Clignancourt, handy for a Red Star game. Three framed montages of match tickets (remember them?) point to regular support across Europe, red flags neatly lined up in a row as if awaiting a military ceremony. In a back room, a huge Shankly mural awaits punters with open arms.
If you’re just arriving or leaving by the Eurostar, a short hop from the Gare du Nord, the Hideout on boulevard du Denain straddles the Channel with its lived-in pub interior and French ambience, plus sports screenings.
Round the corner, the biggest of the city’s two Belushi’s bars, Gare du Nord, displays screens everywhere you turn, while the Canal branch by St-Martin has waterside views – both form part of the St Christopher’s Inn hostels, catering to a student and backpacking crowd.
The biggest chains in town, the Anglo, sport-centric Frogpubs has seven branches in Paris. The oldest, in place for 30 years, the Frog & Rosbif, sits on rue St-Denis. The busiest, in the student quarter of St-Germain on rue Princesse, is the Frog & Princess. The Frog Hop House in the 9th goes big on specialist beers while the Frog & Underground on rue Montmartre hosts DJ parties.
The Irish-themed Corcoran’s brand has several operations around Paris, the most sport-oriented along bar-lined boulevard de Clichy. O’Sullivans, havens for post-work drinks, pub grub and TV sport, has its main spots one by Grands Boulevards métro.
Nearby, Le Longchamp (9 rue du Faubourg-Montmartre) represents a classic example of the PMU betting bar. It stands diagonally opposite the former offices of L’Équipe and France Football, where the European Cup and European Championship were conceived in smoky editorial offices. Hard to imagine it now, but some of the finest football writers France has ever produced once propped up this bar counter.
A little further along the Grands Boulevards, Murphy’s House on rue de la Chaussée d’Antin projects match action on the terrace while you sip and dine before a show at the Opéra or the legendary concert hall, L’Olympia, both close by.
Where to stay
The best hotels for the stadiums and city centre
Reservations can be made at Paris Je T’Aime.
For the Stade de France, the four-star Suite Novotel is directly opposite, on restaurant-lined rue Jules-Rimet. Rooms start at €110 but are quickly booked for big games, rugby too. There is also an ibis on two sides of the stadium: Sud and, one star up, Ouest, plus a bottom-of-the-range Formule 1 option nearby.
For the Parc des Princes, the nearest lodging is the elegant Molitor, halfway between the north end of the stadium and tennis mecca Roland-Garros. A classy swimming pool opened by Johnny Weissmuller in 1929, it fell into disrepair, became an unofficial artists’ studios, then was converted into a 124-room/suite luxury lodging with a high-end restaurant, sauna and, of course, pool.
Cheaper options surround Porte de St-Cloud métro station. On the boulevard of the same name, the three-star Hôtel Murat offers doubles for under €100. The nearby Holiday Inn Paris-Auteuil is a step up in price but not that much pricier, while rooms at the modest Hôtel À l’Orée du Parc (+33 1 47 43 15 07) across avenue de Versailles can be had for around €100, depending if you wish en-suite or not.
Equally convenient for the Parc, across the confusing tangle of roundabout and off-streets, the Radisson Blu Paris-Boulogne is a notch above, but not too much more expensive, with a gym, quality restaurant and terrace, and lounge bar. Practically alongside, the ibis Styles Paris 16 Boulogne, opened in 2017, offers upper-economy lodging.
Handy for the Eurostar terminus and transport to the Stade de France, hotels of varying quality ring the Gare du Nord. In the Accor group are the ibis Styles Gare du Nord TGV and the four-star Mercure Paris Paris Gare du Nord La Fayette while the Timhotel Paris Gare du Nord is the former Kyriad. Squeezed between the chains, the Richmond and the New Hotel are perennial cheapies.
For views of the city’s most famous landmark, the Pullman Paris Eiffel Tower Hotel is a 430-room four-star while the nearby Mercure Paris Centre Eiffel Tower Hotel offers renovated mid-range comfort.
Convenient for the bar zone, the Hôtel des Arts off rue de Charonne makes up in décor what it lacks in room space. Handy for the pubs of the 6th arrondissement, the Hôtel de Nesle is that rare combination of charming and affordable.
Over in the burgeoning north-western outpost of Paris around the rebuilt Colombes stadium, the recently opened Kopster Paris Ouest Colombes brings urban chic to this long-neglected part of town, following on from the success of the original Kopster by the Groupama Stadium in Lyon.
where to shop
Shirts, kits, merchandise and gifts
Proud French sportswear brand Le Coq Sportif has eight stores across Paris, the flagship one on the corner of boulevard St-Germain and rue de Seine. Worn by Fontaine in 58, Rocheteau in 76 and Maradona in 86, it produces cool collections and gets hectic on sales day mornings.
