Champions League final: PSG join ‘greatest of all time’ with back-to-back wins
Head coach Luis Enrique became the fifth manager to win three Champions League/European Cup titles, following in the footsteps of Bob Paisley, Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane.
The Spanish player, who was announced to be PSG’s coach in July 2023, also won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2014-15.
Remarkably, journalist Guillem Balague told BBC Radio 5 Live that “he didn’t want to take the job when he was first asked.”
“[He said] ‘you’re full of stars – I’m not interested’. He was promised [he could] changing the culture and the question was different. The problem was not how to win the Champions League, but what kind of football we wanted.
“The answer was aggressive and attractive, and that’s what Luis Enrique represented, and he believed he could do it.”
Under Luis Enrique, PSG lost record scorer and five-time Ligue 1 player of the year Kylian Mbappe to Real Madrid on a free transfer in 2024.
However, it can be said that the departure of the French striker helped balance the team.
PSG scored 44 more goals in all competitions in their first season without Mbappe (2024-25) compared to his last season at the club.
“Everyone plays like a team,” says Balague of the current squad.
“PSG are the team with the fewest yellow cards in Europe’s top leagues. This is a reflection of emotional control and everyone playing for everyone rather than getting angry.
“HE [Luis Enrique] Mbappe had previously said that when he left, he preferred 5 players to score 10 goals instead of one player who scored 50 goals. There are 20 different strikers in PSG this season. “This is a collective approach.”
They also equaled Barcelona’s record for most goals scored in a single match in the European Cup/Champions League with 45 draws in the 1999-2000 season.
Luis Enrique has also built a great relationship with the PSG fans.
Following last year’s Champions League win, they unfurled a flag showing the pair planting the Barcelona flag in the center circle following the European victory over Juventus in Berlin in 2015, in memory of their coach and their daughter Xana, who died aged nine in 2019.
And in Budapest, before the win over Arsenal, a giant banner showing Luis Enrique lifting the famous trophy was displayed among the French faithful.
He was cheered on by the PSG fans passionately as he was lifted into the air by his players while hold the Champions League trophy.
After receiving his medal, he danced in front of them with president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, celebrating the club’s long-overlooked trophy. Not once, but twice.
