All you need to know: Saint-Etienne - Paris Saint-Germain
Get up to speed with all the background info you need to impress your friends ahead of Sunday's Ligue 1 game.
A little history...
It's the 85th competitive meeting between Paris Saint-Germain and Saint-Etienne with the Parisians boasting a healthy record of 45 wins to 13 losses.
Paris Saint-Germain are unbeaten in their last 18 competitive meetings with Les Verts (14 wins), not losing since a Coupe de la Ligue quarter-final on 27 November, 2012 (0-0, 5-3 on pens.). The club record of 21 games (against Nantes and Angers) is not far away.
It's the 42nd trip for the Rouge-et-Bleu to the Forez where they have won 16 times and lost just ten. It is also where they recorded their first league win, triumphing 1-0 on 18 September, 1971, thanks to a Bernard Guignedoux goal.
Thirty-four players have featured for both teams: Alex Dias, José Aloisio, Jérôme Alonzo, Jean-Christophe Bahebeck, Dominique Bathenay, Mathieu Bodmer, Yohan Cabaye, Zoumana Camara, Dominique Casagrande, Jéremy Clément, Grégory Coupet, Mevlut Erding, Laurent Fournier, David Hellebuyck, Robert Jacques, Gérard Janvion, Christophe Landrin, Jean-Michel Larqué, Thierry Laurey, Francis Llacer, Blaise Matuidi, Roland Mitoraj, Bernard Pardo, Stéphane Pédron, Lionel Potillon, Cyril Pouget, Philippe Redon, Dominique Rocheteau, Daniel Sanchez, Liazid Sandjak, Jean-Luc Sassus, Jean-Philippe Séchet, Siaka Tiené and Jean-Luc Vasseur.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic leads the club's scoring charts against Saint-Étienne with 14, Edison Cavani has 12 while Mustapha Dahleb got 11.
The stakes...
With Marseille's draw at Metz on Saturday, Paris Saint-Germain are assured of being 'autumn champions' for the 12th time in their history (1985-1986, 1988-1989, 1993-1994, 1995-1996, 1996-1997, 2011-2012, 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2015-2016, 2017-2018 and 2018-2019).
Paris Saint-Germain are yet to draw a L1 game this season: 13 wins, 3 defeats, a unique case in the 2019/20 season in France. It's the first time this has happened since Guingamp went 18 matches before playing out their first draw in the 2014/15 season.
The capital club have scored in each of their last 27 away games, last drawing a blank in a goalless draw at Caen on 19 May 2018.
They haven't drawn an away game in L1 since sharing the spoils at Strasbourg (1-1, 05/12/2018) a series of 18 matches (13 wins, 7 defeats).
Les clés du match...
Le Paris Saint-Germain devra confirmer son efficacité offensive (meilleure attaque du championnat avec 35 buts inscrits, malgré un match en retard à jouer à Monaco) contre une équipe que les buteurs rouge et bleu apprécient particulièrement. Avec 146 buts encaissés face au Paris Saint-Germain, Saint-Etienne est aussi le club le plus généreux pour les Parisiens, avec Lens (146 buts aussi pour le club nordiste), un record qui pourrait donc tomber ce soir dans le Forez.