PSG have taken the long road to Champions League glory – with humiliations by Manchester United and Newcastle – but Luis Enrique has ended their ‘obsession’.
“The Champions League is not at all an obsession – that is over. I said that at the first press conference with Luis Enrique,” said PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi with all the conviction of a man whose sportswashing had shrunk under the pressure of one too many loads.
“We are building a new identity; our own style, our own principles of how to play, an offensive play, and a new culture. That’s what we want, and then the results will follow.
“We are building a team that is really playing as a team. We want our players to enjoy playing, our staff to enjoy coaching, and for our fans to enjoy it when you watch.”
Ten days later, PSG were beaten 4-1 at St James’ Park. The players, staff and fans cannot have particularly enjoyed watching Miguel Almiron, Dan Burn, Sean Longstaff and Fabian Schar score against Europe’s perennial underachievers – although the schadenfreude was irresistible for neutrals.
It has been a long, arduous and often absurd journey to the summit. PSG have avoided the ultimate ignominy of exiting at the group stage ever since this odyssey began, but the trade-off for that has been a preposterous propensity to stumble at all manner of other hurdles: consecutive away-goal eliminations by Barcelona and Chelsea; victims of La Remontada; a humiliation so thorough it forced Manchester United to make Ole Gunnar Solskjaer their manager for more than two years; being entirely and utterly Karim Benzema’d in the Bernabeu.
PSG and the Champions League had been in a toxic, unrequited relationship for years, and the former was kidding itself if they ever believed themselves to be in a position to declare it “over”.
But Luis Enrique has broken the cycle.
The Spaniard’s words at his unveiling became a eulogy at the funeral of Inter’s entire psyche. “The attacking identity is non-negotiable – it’s my philosophy. You have to adapt to your players, my job is to get the best out of my players individually and collectively. I am committed to putting a winning team together and I have no doubt that I will be able to do that and give PSG fans something they will like.”
There were tears in the stands, in the dugout, on the pitch. It was historic but harrowing, a traumatic scene of youthful exuberance obliterating grizzled experience. It was the end of the road for Inter, who would have taken Boyz II Men 0 as early as the 20th minute had they been offered the choice. And after almost a decade and a half it is the belated start of what PSG hope to translate into a period of utter dominance.
Over the course of those 90 minutes it was difficult to envisage any other scenario developing over the next few years. The youngest starting line-up in a Champions League final this century produced two of the five youngest ever European Cup final scorers. The man of the match was 19-year-old Desire Doue. The only player older than 30 of the 16 used was record appearance maker Marquinhos. This is not a group on the verge of disbanding.
That provided an interesting juxtaposition with Inter, for whom this was a second Champions League final in three years, but with the tangible sense it would be their last together. The future of Simone Inzaghi is deeply uncertain, three of their starters were at least 36 and the rest were made to look twice as old. PSG started by hammering the ball out for a throw-in deep in Inter’s half and for the subsequent hour and a half rarely afforded them the opportunity to escape.
This was their last stand and the early mistakes betrayed it, culminating in the double salvo from Federico Dimarco which ended the game as a contest. He was caught in his own offside trap and then later isolated by Doue down the right as PSG took the quickest two-goal lead in final history.
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Willian Pacho was winning everything, including a battle with Nico Barella as the Inter midfielder hoped to shepherd the ball out for a corner, only for the PSG centre-half to poke it away and launch the counter which produced the second goal. Achraf Hakimi started popping up at centre-forward and on the left-wing.
Hakan Calhanoglu, the set-piece master, was gifted a presentable free-kick in the vicinity of the PSG area and thumped it straight out for a goal kick early in the second half; it summed the proceedings up neatly.
Then came the landslide. Inzaghi made his changes, four by the hour mark. The sight of Matteo Darmian taking to the pitch somehow did not galvanise Inter but PSG derived motivation from it anyway, hitting a ridiculous triple punch of quality goals: Vitinha to Doue; Ousmane Dembele to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia; Bradley Barcola to fellow substitute Senny Mayulu.
It was almost painful to watch by the end, particularly through the prism of the hapless Francesco Acerbi.
Perhaps only Kylian Mbappe had a more uncomfortable night as the modern-day Michael Owen: the prodigy distracted by the lights of Real Madrid, only for his boyhood club to thrive and immediately capture the sport’s biggest prize in his absence. He might be able to console himself with having scored in that Newcastle defeat.
As it is, the evening belonged not to Al-Khelaifi – despite some weird yet entirely predictable “win for football” nonsense – but Luis Enrique. His personal story is touching enough but even on a professional level it is refreshing to watch such a phenomenally talented and often overlooked coach achieve something so historic.
This PSG success cannot be framed properly without acknowledging the vast spend needed to deliver it. With the highest wage bill in Europe and over £200m invested on transfers this season alone it is, in many ways, simple maths. But Enrique going where incredible managers before him could not at least means something.
And that thing, ultimately, is a Super Cup final against Spurs. It is the showdown of Europe’s true greatest teams we all deserve, and the only real way to celebrate the long-awaited climax of an “obsession”.
