India, June 1 – Left Field/Sharda Ugra

Paris is in a frenzy, overflowing with excitement, and cannot stop itself from engaging in frequent drive-bys in souped-up Mercs, beat-up hatchbacks, and motorcycles, as well as blaring horns and hoots and yelling "championes" at anyone who will listen. Or perhaps France is buzzing after Paris St-Germain's victory at the Champions League final on Saturday night. After Olympic Marseille in 1993, PSG is just the second French team to ever win the Champions League title.

With 48,000 other supporters, eighteen-year-old friends Tom Gene and Corbinaud Mathis from La Rochelle somehow managed to gain entry to the watch party at the Parc des Princes on Saturday night after traveling more than three hours from the southeast coast. They bought 40-euro tickets for 80 euros, and they were in tears after PSG defeated Inter 5-0. "We are allowed" to cry "for sport," Gene said, indicating that the French have no problem with it.

The Duval brothers, Lucas and Tomas, are from La Rouen, which is located on the Normandy coast. They are members of a family of PSG supporters—"we are fans since we've been born 25 years ago, before us our father and our grandfather"—and they enjoy beers at a restaurant just a stone's throw away from Parc des Prince. The club's Megastore has a line that, by a conservative estimate, extends at least 400 meters around its façade, and the Parc des Princes is preparing to host the team on Sunday night.

The "MegaStore" standee, which is quickly put over the line to finish the television images, has taken the PSG team a few hours to find, in true French manner. A supporter in another area of the stadium ignited flares on the route that crosses the high-speed highway that connects the heart of Paris to the outside. The passing vehicles responded with a chorus of continuous, appreciative honking.

"The most beautiful day of our lives - we have dreamed of it since we were little - this is the most beautiful cup in the world," said the Duvals, who were unable to attend the watch party and instead watched at a bar. On the news of the riots in Paris following the game, the supporters shrug their shoulders. There were about 500 people detained, two fatalities, and roughly 200 injuries. In anticipation of the team's triumph march on the Champs Elysees, traffic was stopped on the roadways and subway stations.

"This occurs when ultras meet excitable young men," said my cab driver, Smail Moulel, who played for JK Kabylie in the Algerian league for a season as right back ("No. 2, Cafu's position"). Team slogans, which somehow sound grander in French, are being plastered all over the Parc des Princes concourse and its surroundings. This is Paris; this is Paris.

To be more precise, not here; rather, in the metaphorical sense, the Parc des Princes and Roland Garros are located in the 16th arrondissement of Boulogne-Billancourt. As Simon Kuper, the author of Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty First Century, puts it, "People who live there (in the 16th arrondissement) don't go to watch much - PSG's traditional fanbase is more proletarian," the 16th arrondissement is very chi-chi.

Kuper's Paris in the 21st century is reflected in the PSG supporters. Tourists know this as the Snow Globe version of Paris, with its 2 million residents, which Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris Olympic committee, referred to as the Paris inside the Peripherique, the ring road surrounding the city center.

However, Paris, where PSG plays, is located outside the Peripherique. Paris, with its diverse immigrant population of about 8 million people, non-whites from francophone Africa, and other places, is the city and its suburbs. "Paris has grown like a non-European city in the last two decades, and all the growth is in the suburbs. PSG is mostly a club of the suburbs," said Kuper, who has lived in Paris for over 20 years and is now a naturalized citizen of France.

He claims that many suburbs are modern towns with a small history and few indicators of belonging. "Through the club, the residents—whether they are immigrants, the offspring of immigrants, or people from other parts of France—discover a sense of connection to Paris."

What is referred to as a Greater Paris or a Grand Paris is this Paris, "which was never discussed as a concept or an idea until recently." Therefore, the Grand Paris club is PSG, which is a European institution in and of itself. Although the majority of European teams may have non-white players, PSG's fan base is also non-white. PSG supporters chatted in a patois that sounded like French and Arabic while the Duvals were telling their story next to them, enjoying a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

Senny Mayulu, who scored the game-winning goal in Munich, grew up in Le Blanc-Mesnil, a northern suburb of Paris, and is one of the many young PSG players who are immigrants' kids. The reality that PSG's success has been the result of a team of experienced professionals and homegrown talent, with no Galactico element, has given rise to a great deal of joy. That their winning squad is a group effort rather than a collection of outstanding individuals.

Hardy captain Marquinhos is equally adored by everyone, while teen prodigy Desire Doue is well-loved. Amin, a hotel receptionist who is also a high school philosophy instructor and chess player, is relishing the moment, saying, "Yesterday felt like Independence Day. A second Independence Day." Amin is a fan of Gukesh and Viswanathan Anand.

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