Could PSG dominate European football for years to come?

New York Times

3 days ago

Paris Saint-Germain's stunning 5-0 demolition of Inter on Saturday night will go down as one of the most one-sided Champions League finals ever played.
The scoreline was record-breaking, marking the largest winning margin ever in a European Cup final. While the performance was just as impressive as PSG outclassed Inter in every single department.
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With such a young and talented squad — and the weight of winning the Champions League now finally off their shoulders — the question now is how much more this PSG team could go on to achieve?
On the latest episode of The Totally Football Show, James Richardson was joined by Duncan Alexander, Daniel Storey and Tim Spiers to debate whether this PSG side could dominate European football for years to come.
A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on 'The Totally Football Show' feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
James: It was a perfect night for Paris Saint-Germain. Did you guys not get a sense that this is a team that's beginning to realise its potential and beginning to bring through players who can take them to another level? Are we witnessing a generational outfit in the way that the AC Milan team of the late 1980s were, or the great Barcelona side of the early 1990s?
Duncan: It reminded me in some ways of the previous great performance in the final, which was Barcelona at Wembley in 2011. I remember after that everyone was like 'This team are going to win the European Cup for the next 10 years.' But they've only got to one final since. Unless you're Real Madrid, it's very hard to plan for successive seasons of glory in the Champions League.
As it stands: yes, it looks like PSG are not only a great team, but they're almost reshaping how other teams are going to set up for the next few years. So it is exciting from that point of view. But we've all watched enough football in our lives to know that it's never that simple. And in underground layers across Europe, your Pep Guardiola's and Arne Slot's will be planning counter-offensives. So we'll see what happens, but for now let's just enjoy a superb display.
Daniel: There's one broad theme of the last two or three years in international and club football. It's these superstar teams increasingly giving chances to teenagers that people hadn't heard of three months ago, and then those players becoming some of the most famous players in the world within a matter of weeks. Spain with Lamine Yamal at the Euros clearly lent on that, and Barcelona have done the same.
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It does feel that by moving on Messi and Neymar, PSG have understood increasingly that not only is Paris one of the most fevered hotspots for creating talent in world football, but also that if you get those players in and give them the chance, then that's how you make them flourish. They can peak at 18 or 19, you don't have to wait until they're 22 or 23 to break into the team.
That is perhaps slightly antithetical to how Serie A has always been about using young players and giving those players a chance, because in Italy they rely upon experience. The whole framework is that you're in a final, so you need experience: you need your hardened guys, and you need your Giorgio Chiellini's to get you through. But I don't think that's the case anymore.
You can use that exuberance of youth to act as a complete game changer in a tournament because people don't know how to defend these players, and they haven't scouted them as much. It looked like Federico Dimarco had never seen Desire Doue play football before. And obviously he has, but he hasn't played a talent who is just going on pure adrenaline and exuberance of youth.
Tim: To the final whistle, they were absolutely incessant and relentless with their pressing. It was 4-0 and they were still going for a fifth. Then you had Senny Mayulu coming on and scoring, and his celebration was just wonderful. In complete contrast to Achraf Hakimi's apology for scoring the first, which was just insane.
But it's their aggression which was so impressive. It's Hakimi touching the ball more in the opposition half than he did in his own half as a right-back. It's every time Vitinha was getting the ball, just being unbelievably positive, like the quick dart forward he did for the third goal. It was two one-twos, and then in three seconds he was outside the opposition box having just been outside his own.
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Duncan: And that must have come from the manager instilling that understanding in the players that they don't have to be scared to make mistakes, which probably lessens the mistakes. Even the things that look like mistakes from PSG aren't mistakes. They took the kick-off and kicked it straight out for a throw-in. They questioned it on the commentary, but they've actually been doing that quite a lot in games this season. It's almost to pen the opposition in the corner. So even the stuff that looks bad is actually by design.
Daniel: I remember there was a quote from Luis Enrique when he was the Spain manager. Unai Simon had made a really bad mistake and Enrique was consoling him after the game. And he said, 'There's a difference between a failure of process and a failure of execution. If you make the wrong decision, I'm annoyed because I want to teach you to make the right decisions. But if you make the right decision and make a mistake, that's fine — that's just a failure of execution. You're good enough, so you'll get that right.'
There's something really scary at any level of football about playing against a team whose players look like they're having fun and enjoying themselves. Inter looked like they had a plan to set up, but it didn't work and they couldn't shift from that. Whereas the flicks from Dembele and Doue, even at 1-0, it just looked like they were having so much fun.
That's really scary for an opposition because it was like they were taking the mick out of them, and they were enjoying themselves while doing it.
You can listen to full episodes of The Totally Football Show for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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