Football. Ligue 1: With the reception of Metz, Paris FC wants to make Jean-Bouin "a fortress"
Paris FC will play their first Ligue 1 match against Metz at Jean-Bouin this Sunday (5:15 p.m.). After settling into their new stadium this week, Stéphane Gilli's players are looking to quickly pick up points against another newly promoted team to feel at home and make it a feared ground for their opponents.
Stéphane Gilli's Paris FC intends to make a success of its first match at Jean-Bouin this Sunday against Metz. Photo Sipa
Defeated twice in its first two Ligue 1 matches, the ambitious Paris FC makes its debut in its new Jean-Bouin home this Sunday (5:15 p.m.) against Metz, with the obligation to take points and the desire to make it a real "fortress".
The Charléty stadium in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, the scene of the club's promotion to the first division, has been gone. PFC has been in Jean-Bouin since Thursday for its first training session under the watchful eye of its president Pierre Ferracci and Antoine Arnault, its owner since the autumn.
"This is our first important home game in a magnificent stadium. We must congratulate the management for the work they have done, with a new pitch and the decorations to make us feel at home. Jean-Bouin needs to become a fortress and it's important to take three points," said Stéphane Gilli, coach of the newly promoted Parisian side.
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"We're leaving Charléty with a bit of regret, but we're very happy to be coming to a more appropriate, closed stadium, a football stadium. It's up to us to inaugurate it in the best possible way on Sunday. We trained there, and it was my intention not to discover the stadium on Sunday, to get our bearings, especially on set pieces," he also explained.
Home to the Stade Français rugby players, with whom the PFC will be co-locating, Jean-Bouin had to be brought up to Ligue 1 standards in two months, a record time. This included its pitch, which was synthetic last year and banned by the Professional Football League's specifications, becoming a "latest-generation hybrid."
"The first impressions were pleasant," said midfielder Vincent Marchetti. "We feel like something can happen in a full stadium." This should be the case on Sunday for the match against Metz, another promoted team. On Friday, only about a hundred tickets remained for sale out of the 19,800 available at Jean-Bouin. The same goes for the 7,000 season tickets made available by the club, which have almost all been sold.
All of this should help PFC get its season off to a good start. "We want to stay up, we know that home wins are very important, and we need a stadium where we can really feel at home," explained Marchetti.
The two opening defeats, against Angers (1-0) and Marseille (5-2) , did not affect Parisian ambitions. "What I saw at times in Angers and Marseille makes me say that it will be fine but we need results," shared the coach of the promoted team.
For his team's first home game, Gilli will already be able to count on a significant addition, with midfielder Pierre Lees-Melou arriving in Paris on Thursday and available this weekend. Two more signings are expected before the end of the transfer window on Sunday evening: a right-back and an attacking player.
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