When Mary Earps signed for Paris Saint-Germain last summer, she was ready for big things. "Hearing about the ambition of the club, they want to be the best team in Europe, the best team in the world, and that's exactly what I want to be," she said. But a disappointing first season in France finally finished on Friday, as Wendie Renard's 'Panenka' penalty drifted beyond the Lionesses goalkeeper to seal a title-clinching 3-0 win for Lyon, leaving the Parisians without a trophy to their name this term.
That's not on Earps. After her place on the bench in PSG's second league game of the season sparked concerns that she might not be the team's No.1, she's been ever-present in the competition and helped the club from the capital boast the second-best defensive record in the division, only behind Lyon. Indeed, only Christiane Endler, the starting shot-stopper for the French champions, has kept more clean sheets this season than the England international.
But Earps has had to witness, first-hand, the chaos that so often surrounds PSG and condemns them to these disappointments. This year, the men's team appear to have been spared from the circus; Luis Enrique's side have won two trophies already, are in Saturday's French Cup final and will face Inter the following weekend in the Champions League final. However, that has all coincided with the women's side playing a more prominent role in the nonsense, in a season that ended with them trophy-less, manager-less and completely absent from the Champions League proper.