Paris Saint-Germain: An International and Ethnic Profile–Part 1

By: Thomas | August 19th, 2009

In this post I’m going to be talking about where the squad comes from, analyzing this data, and drawing conclusions (that will most likely be utterly untrue) about it. First of all, I’m going to list the birthplace and nationality of all the members of our squad:

1. Grégory Coupet: Le Puy-en-Velay, France–French*.
2. Ceará: Crato, Brazil–Brazilian.
3. Mamadou Sakho: Paris, France–French.
4. Claude Makélélé: Kinshasa, DR Congo–French*.
6. Grégory Bourillon: Laval, France–French.
7. Ludovic Giuly: Lyon, France–French*.
8. Péguy Luyindula: Kinshasa, DR Congo–French*.
9. Guillaume Hoarau: Reunion, France–French.
10. Stéphane Sessegnon: Allahe, Benin–Beninese*.
11. Mevlüt Erdinç: Besancon, France–Turkish*.
12. Albert Baning: Douala, Cameroon–Cameroonian.
13. Sammy Traoré: Paris, France–Malian*.
14. Mateja Kezman: Zemun, Serbia–Serbian*.
15. Zoumana Camara: Paris, France–French*.
16. Willy Grondin: Reunion, France–French.
17. Granddi Ngoyi: Paris, France–~~Congolese~~ French.
18. Loris Arnaud: Paris, France–French.
20. Clément Chantôme: Sens, France–French.
22. Sylvain Armand: Saint-Etienne, France–French.
23. Jérémy Clément: Montpellier, France–French.
24. Tripy Makonda: Paris, France–French.
25. Jerome Rothen: Paris, France–French*.
26. Christophe Jallet: Cognac, France–French.
27. Younousse Sankharé: Paris, France–French.
28. Maxime Partouche: Paris, France–French.
29. Yannick Boli: Paris, France–Ivorian.
30. Apoula Edel: Ekom I-Mfou, Cameroon–Armenian*.

*indicates international appearances for team indicated by nationality, not birthplace.
bold italics indicates that the player was born in France but plays for a different national team.
italics indicates the player plays for a different national team than that of their birth country.
bold indicates the player was born elsewhere but plays for the French National Team.

First of all, we have the list of players who were born and raised in Paris.

3. Mamadou Sakho: Paris, France–French.
13. Sammy Traoré: Paris, France–Malian*.
15. Zoumana Camara: Paris, France–French*.
17. Granddi Ngoyi: Paris, France–Congolese.
18. Loris Arnaud: Paris, France–French.
24. Tripy Makonda: Paris, France–French.
25. Jerome Rothen: Paris, France–French*.
27. Younousse Sankharé: Paris, France–French.
28. Maxime Partouche: Paris, France–French.
29. Yannick Boli: Paris, France–Ivorian.

Thats 10, If you didn’t bother to count, out of a squad of 27. That means a little over a third of the squad is from the city, an extremely high number (For reference, 1 player in the 30 player OL squad is from Lyon, and while doing this research, I found out that the Old Guardien (Coupet) is from the same tiny town as Govou!). There are several possible reasons for the unusually large number of native Parisians in the squad. The first of which is that the academy recruits almost exclusively from Paris, so players graduating the academy are a huge Parisian supply for the squad. Another is that since Paris is the largest city on the Old Continent (excepting Moscow, which may or may not be in Europe), there is bound to be talent there, and as PSG has one of the best academies in France (If you’re about to contradict me, think about Nicolas Anelka, and that Liverpool has signed two of our youngsters in the last two years) so talent is sure to be developed.

Another thing I noted is that 80% of the Parisian players in our team are of African descent, and 90% of the Parisian academy graduates are of African descent. I have no idea what this says, but I thought it was interesting.

Note: Jerome Rothen is the sole Parisian player in the squad who did not attend the PSG academy.

This is the conclusion of part one of this post. I split it so I wouldn’t give you an information overload (like I haven’t already). I hope some of you were able to read this, because I certainly couldn’t If I was a PSG Offside reader.