Putting their own stamp on a tradition as only they can, Paris Saint-Germain revealed a specially created pennant ahead of their Champions League match against Real Sociedad, created by artist Greg Podevin.
The passing of a pennant ahead of kick off is a time-honoured tradition that takes place ahead of significant matches in football, and it’s been held for as long as memory serves. The idea is that they are exchanged by the captains of the respective teams as a sign of respect for each other, and accepting those banners implies that the opponent values the team against whom they will play, signalling the intent to play fairly and with honour. Usually, the pennant features the crest of the team in question, or the national flag for international fixtures, but ahead of the first leg of their Last 16 Champions League match with Real Sociedad, PSG decided to put their own spin on proceedings.
Traditional pennants can be a bit uninspiring in their presentation, but if there's any team in the world on whom you can rely to buck trends and blaze trails, it's PSG, and so they proved, turning to artist Greg Podevin for a bespoke piece for the return of the knockout stages of the Champions League. He set about creating a unique pennant for the occasion, featuring both club crests (pleasing the purists), but presented on a vibrant background made up again of the clubs' crests in the artist's signature style.
Marquinhos was the man to hand over the pennant ahead of the match, passing to his counterpart, Mikel Merino, standing in for the injured Mikel Oyarzabal. And it preceded a confident 2-0 win for the French side.
It was a refreshing take on what could be argued is a tired tradition, and it served to represent not only PSG's creative and free spirit, but also the changing times of football culture as a whole. Would love to see more of this, with artists given a canvas fitting of their talents on which to showcase their work.
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