Inter Milan's outclassed old men left to mourn the death of a Champions League dream

Independent

a day ago

Reach a certain age and it isn't uncommon to develop a greater interest in history. Inter Milan 's old-timers made it: the heaviest defeat ever in a European Cup or Champions League final, a rout still greater than the spectacular scorelines in 1960, 1974, 1989 and 1994, a thrashing that removed two of AC Milan's routs from the record books.
This was a performance that will echo through the ages. Not by them, however, but to them. Inter conceded three goals to teenagers, Desire Doue's double followed by the historic fifth from Senny Mayulu.
Inter are old. It isn't a secret. Barcelona and Bayern Munich probably noticed it, and Arsenal and Manchester City before them. Yet only Paris Saint-Germain succeeded in making them look old. The newest champions of Europe won a generation game so emphatically and dramatically it felt like a case of elder abuse.
In a Champions League final of opposites – European Cup winners in the 1960s against the club not founded until 1970, bargain buys against big spenders, old against young – the team built for the future discovered their time is now. The side trying to resist the passing of time were overwhelmed by the waves of Parisian attacks. The biggest game of their lives proved one of the worst. It finished with them stood, heads bowed, in front of an emptying away end.
Their throwback campaign ended with Inter dominated and demoralised. No one else had done this to them, to the obdurate old-timers. Their only defeat in 14 European games this season had come to Bayer Leverkusen. Go on consistency of results in Europe and group-stage finish and they might have been deemed favourites. Yet PSG 's 2025 surge has shown a team on the rise, a side imbued with talent and explosiveness.
Then there was Inter, carrying the hopes of everyone who is desperate for their best days to not be confined to the past. On average this side was 30 years and 19 days old, more than a decade the senior of Doue. A man born after the 2005 Champions League final struck twice in the 2025 showpiece. He was a symbolic scorer.
PSG showed the merits of youth and pace. Inter were outnumbered on the flanks, overpowered in midfield. There was room behind their defence, outside it, anywhere and everywhere. It was not a day to espouse the merits of the 3-5-2 formation. Not when Inter seemed to have fewer players in every part of the pitch. That is what speed can do. Inter's positional sense proved no asset when subjected to an assault. They were scythed apart by a team too slick and quick for them.
PSG made their trademark fast start; they have scored in the first dozen minutes against each of Liverpool, Aston Villa, Arsenal and Inter in the knockout stages. But they sustained it, too.
Behind for only 16 minutes in the Champions League, Inter trailed after 12 and were two down after 20, five adrift after 90. If their strategy was to use their experience to stay in the game, it was destroyed by the relentlessness of PSG's running, by the elusiveness of Doue and Ousmane Dembele, by the combination of confidence and class.
And, not least, by Vitinha's capacity to play penetrative forward passes with deceptive ease. One brought Doue's second goal. Another produced PSG's first. The scorer, Achraf Hakimi, was one of the players Inter sold in the cost-cutting as Steven Zhang's ownership unravelled, as Antonio Conte's spending spree required a return. And yet, four years later, those past financial problems bit Inter, courtesy of a club whose budget can seem limitless. Hakimi was apologetic; PSG's later celebrations were far more emphatic.
In fairness, Denzel Dumfries, Hakimi's replacement, was a rarity in bringing dynamism to this Inter team. Yet Inter's wing-backs are often a strength; PSG used the space behind them to turn them into a weakness. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the more charismatic of dribblers, ran at Dumfries. PSG had still more joy on the opposite flank, helped by the ability to transfer the ball from one wing to another.
And this was a disaster for Federico Dimarco, the Interista; he has a Scudetto tattoo, but he may never need a Champions League one. Hakimi escaped behind him for the first goal; he deflected in Doue's shot for the second. Perhaps it didn't help Dimarco that the left of Inter's midfield trio was 36-year-old Henrikh Mkhitaryan, a player so old he was born behind the Iron Curtain.
But still younger than Francesco Acerbi, who was down on his haunches after Kvaratskhelia made it four. A 37-year-old required protection but Inter were ragged, wretched.
It seemed a belated recognition of their problems when manager Simone Inzaghi's first changes were to bring on players aged 23 and 24 yet the latter, Yann Bisseck, was promptly hamstrung. Inzaghi was dressed, as ever, like a minor character from The Sopranos at a funeral. As Inter unravelled, he could mourn the death of a dream.