Toast of France

Paris Saint-Germain players celebrate after sealing the French League title in Troyes on Sunday. Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored four second-half goals as PSG pulverised last-placed Troyes 9-0 to become champions with a record eight games to spare. (Photo: AP)

Along with the satisfaction of reaching the Champions League quarterfinals last midweek, Paris Saint-Germain may also have felt considerable relief at prolonging their European adventure.

After all, a failure to make it four consecutive appearances in the last eight of Europe’s elite club competition would have made for a rather anti-climactic end to the season.

PSG celebrated winning a fourth successive French title on Sunday, their sixth overall, with a 9-0 victory at bottom side Troyes.

Laurent Blanc’s team are the earliest champions in the history of the French game, with eight matches and two months of the season remaining.

“We have been top right from the start. I don’t know if we’ll ever manage to repeat such a performance,” said Blanc this weekend.

Paris will now hope to go and complete a clean sweep of the domestic trophies for the second year running, with a French Cup semifinal at Lorient and the League Cup final against Lille to come in April.

That is certainly not to be sniffed at, but they measure themselves now against the continent’s best in the Champions League, and there will be no euphoria at winning a league in which their domination has become abysmal.

Before a 1-2 defeat at Lyon two weeks ago, they had gone a record 36 Ligue 1 games unbeaten since March 2015, and despite that solitary loss, PSG are on course to break their own record for the highest points total in top flight.

PSG are not playing in the same league as the rest of France, such a monster have they become since 2011. Talisman Zlatan Ibrahimovic, in possibly his last season in France, has again gone past the 30-goal mark, while the arrival of Angel Di Maria and emergence of Lucas Moura have helped take PSG to another level at times.