Today I'm going back 22 years to the year 2000 and another of the matches that I attended whilst living and working in France. This time it was Paris-Saint-Germain, or PSG as they seem to be referred to these days, against Nancy (no jokes about Nancy Boys this time I promise!), played at the Parc des Princes in front of an attendance of 42,103.
Regular readers of these articles may recall my earlier homage to PSG captain Eric Rabesandratana. Eric scored a last gasp 90th minute equaliser in this game to cancel out Nancy's 82nd minute penalty goal scored by... Tony Cascarino! Cascarino was born in England and initially played for Gillingham before transferring to Millwall and then Aston Villa. He went on to spend a season at Celtic before returning to England to play for Chelsea. In 1994 Cascarino signed for Marseille and from there moved to Nancy, playing in France until 2000 when he finally retired after a 20-year career in which he scored 248 League goals in 620 League appearances. Cascarino also had an international career, playing for the Republic of Ireland although, according to Cascarino himself, he should not have done so as his mother was adopted and was not a blood relative of his Irish grandfather (complicated eh?). Irrespective, he earned a more than respectable 88 caps scoring 19 goals. Cas' has been a presenter on Talk Radio in his retirement.
Also playing in the featured game was PSG goalkeeper Bernard Lama who will be familiar to West Ham United supporters for whom he played 12 League games on loan in 1997/8. PSG was Lama's principal club and he made 251 appearances for PSG between 1992-2000. Lama was also a member of France's 1998 World Cup winning and the Euro 2000 winning squads and earned a total of 44 French caps.
CRB Match No. 1178
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