Paris Saint-Germain, Champions League winner.
At long last the club that was transformed by Qatari funds and bought and sold a succession of the world’s greatest players in an extravagant bid to get to the top has got its hands on the big one.
European club soccer’s grandest prize has a new home after PSG thrashed Inter Milan 5-0 in Saturday’s final in Munich.
“It’s in the bag, it’s coming home with us to Paris tomorrow,” coach Luis Enrique said. “My first day at the PSG campus I said the ultimate goal was to fill the trophy cabinet. The only trophy missing was the Champions League. Here we have ticked that box.”
It was the trophy that not even Lionel Messi, Neymar or Kylian Mbappe could deliver to the French club. Luis Enrique has achieved it after overseeing PSG’s shift from the era of galactico signings to one of genuine team-building.
Fitting then that Désiré Doué, the 19-year-old French forward, emblematic of the club’s new generation, was the chief inspiration and player of the match as PSG recorded the biggest win in a final in the competition’s 70-year history. In a scintillating performance, Doué scored two goals and set up another goal in little over an hour on the field before being substituted.
“It is wonderful, it is magical, we are rewriting the history of this club and French football,” he said.
Achraf Hakimi, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and substitute Senny Mayulu all scored around Doue’s double in a game in which PSG could have run out an even bigger winner.
“It's exceptional,” striker Ousmane Dembele said. “It's especially good since we did it in style."
Now PSG can truly sit alongside the royalty of European soccer. Not by virtue of turnover or merchandizing but on the merits of its achievements on the field. The Champions League is the ultimate barometer of the continent’s elite clubs and up until now PSG has been a flashy contender that always came up short.
That all changed at Allianz Arena, the home of Bayern Munich, one of the titans of Europe, and a fitting stage for PSG’s crowning moment. Not least because it was against Bayern that it lost its only other Champions League final in 2020, leaving Neymar in tears in an empty stadium in Lisbon where fans were locked out because of the pandemic.
On this occasion, thousands of PSG supporters were there to revel in the moment, waving flags, lighting flares and drowning out their rivals from Inter, many of whose supporters left the stadium long before the final whistle.
They’d been partying in the streets of Munich throughout the day, but that was nothing compared to the scenes of joy when captain Marquinhos held the trophy aloft with fireworks and golden confetti exploding behind him.
“I have nothing left, I have given everything,” Marquinhos told broadcaster Canal Plus. “The fans are proud of us. Make the most of it guys, I love you.”
After so many setbacks in this competition, PSG truly delivered on the night.
It took just 12 minutes for the French champion to go ahead with a move of speed and precision when Vitinha’s threaded pass into the box found the feet of Doué. The forward could have shot, but instead slid in Hakimi to tap into an open net.
Former Inter player Hakimi muted his celebrations, but the PSG fans went wild.
Eight minutes later and the lead was doubled when Doué’s shot from the right of the box deflected off Federico Dimarco and past Inter goalkeeper Yann Sommer.
He got his second in the 63rd, sliding the ball into the bottom corner when through on goal.
Kvaratskhelia added the fourth 10 minutes later and Mayulu struck in the 86th, just two minutes after coming on.
Doué and Mayulu became the third and fourth teenagers to score in a Champions League final following Patrick Kluivert in 1995 and Carlos Alberto in 2004.
Luis Enrique doubles and trebles
Luis Enrique, who won the 2015 Champions League with Barcelona, became the seventh coach to win the trophy with two different teams, joining greats Carlo Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho.
He also led PSG to a first treble of trophies — the Champions League added to Ligue 1 and the French Cup — matching his achievement with Barcelona 10 years ago.
His players threw him high in the air in celebration after the whistle.
“We are ambitious, we are going to continue to conquer the football world,” he said.
For PSG, this moment has been 14 years in the making since it was bought by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011 and, awash with newfound riches, targeted marquee signings to speed up its route to the top.
In came superstars Zlatan Ibrahimovic, David Beckham and Edinson Cavani. The ante was further upped with the arrivals of Neymar for a world record $262 million, Mbappe and finally Messi, allowing PSG to field possibly the richest array of forwards ever assembled, but still no Champions League trophy to show for it.
The departure of that last stellar trio over the past two years has been the turning point, with a greater focus on the team rather than a collection of stars.
Not that PSG’s transformation hasn’t come at a cost.
It may make for a nice narrative that it has eschewed the big spending approach of before to organically assemble a team to beat all-comers from across Europe. The opposite is true. While it is without the marquee players of the past, this is still one of the most expensive squads in world soccer.
Inter, meanwhile, was on track for a treble just over a month ago, but has finished the season empty-handed.
Having pushed Manchester City close in the final of 2023 in Istanbul, the Italian giant was totally outclassed by PSG. The sight of many empty seats on Inter's side of the stadium during the second half suggested fans had seen enough.
“We are extremely disappointed,” coach Simone Inzaghi said. “Defeats make you stronger. We've been through this before when we lost the final in Istanbul, but the following year we won the league title."
