How does this PSG victory compare with other Champions League winners?

New York Times

2 days ago

All things considered, it will go down as one of the great football performances. Paris Saint-Germain's 5-0 victory over Inter on Sunday night in Munich is the biggest winning margin in the history of the European Cup final. And it was fully deserved.
European Cup finals aren't meant to be won like this. Previous standout performances this century were won by comparatively modest scorelines: Barcelona's win over Manchester United in 2011, and also their victory over Juventus four years later, were both 'only' 3-1. Jose Mourinho's Porto beat Monaco 3-0 in 2004, but were on the back foot for most of the first half. Real Madrid have tended to pile up late goals, which has put some gloss on their performances. You have to go back to Milan's legendary 4-0 thrashing of Barcelona in 1994 for something comparable.
But this was 5-0, and showed all the facets of PSG's game. They went ahead with a slick passing move, demonstrated their quality in possession, and once ahead were rampant on the counter-attack, sprinting past Inter's midfielders and defenders with ease.
It's incredible how quickly things can change in football. Inter went into the game feeling like they had a serious chance of becoming European champions, and now suddenly they seem light years away. Their system looked outdated. Their players felt past their best. Those things aren't necessarily true, and Inter would be foolish to overreact to one defeat. But this was a truly thumping loss, the type that takes years to get over. It was striking, after full time, to see scores of Inter supporters in floods of tears; almost aggressive crying you associate with Brazil's 7-1 loss to Germany in 2014.
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From PSG's perspective, such a momentous victory means various individuals have to be considered in a different light than a few days ago. Luis Enrique has now led two different sides to European Cup glory, 10 years apart, and both his Barcelona side of 2015 and his PSG side of 2025 will live long in the memory. In between, he was rather unfortunate not to win Euro 2020, too. His Spain side outplayed Italy in that semi-final, losing only on penalties.
As it happens, the man who thwarted him that night at Wembley four years ago is now on his side. Gigi Donnarumma has won both the European Championship and the European Cup, and given his penalty saves in both competitions, and his displays against Arsenal in the semi-final, can claim to have been his side's best performer in both.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has had a major impact in ending both Napoli's long wait for a Serie A title, which came in 2023, and PSG's long wait for a European Cup. This season, he has managed to win both Serie A and Ligue 1, and now the Champions League, too.
Fabian Ruiz was probably Spain's best player as they won the European Championship last year, and is now also a European champion at club level. Maybe only Lamine Yamal has enjoyed a better 12 months for club and country.
Ousmane Dembele's transformation into a world-class centre-forward has been completely unexpected — both the 'world-class' and 'centre-forward' aspects of that equation. Last night, Luis Enrique suggested he should win the Ballon d'Or, not merely for his goals, but also for his pressing.
Elsewhere, players such as Vitinha and Joao Neves could play at this level for several years. And as for the likes of Desire Doue and Senny Mayulu, who knows? Both could become legends of the game. Even if they do nothing else, they will forever be heroes in Paris.
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But this wasn't, by and large, about individuals. Like all the best sides, PSG are stronger than the sum of their parts. Their midfield rotation, in particular, has been magical to watch throughout this Champions League knockout stage. The way Vitinha prompted a passing move from deep, then ran through the Inter defence to tee up Doue for the third goal, showed the understanding in the middle of the pitch. Fabian often dropped into defence to allow Achraf Hakimi to fly forward down the opposite wing. The right-back's attacking bursts are risky, and have nearly cost PSG on a couple of occasions this season in the Champions League, but he justified his positioning by scoring the opener.
Up top, the attackers varied their position without ever losing balance, with Doue and Kvaratskhelia appearing as centre-forwards, and Dembele effective both when coming deep and when drifting wide. It does feel like PSG are playing a slightly different genre of football to that perfected by other front-foot, possession-based sides in recent years, based less around positional play and more around clusters of players combining. They aren't the only ones doing that, but they're clearly the best at it.
It's too much to suggest that this is a new era of PSG dominance — people always say that about young teams that explode into winners. Ultimately, it's simply not how knockout competition works in a sport based around fine margins. Indeed, PSG needed penalties to get past Liverpool and plenty of Donnarumma saves to eliminate Arsenal. They didn't breeze through the knockout stage, and their results back in the league phase were even worse.
But that doesn't matter now, the same way no one remembers Milan scoring just six times, and winning only twice, in their six group games in 1993-94 before their 4-0 win over Barca. The performance in the final is what we remember, and this one will be remembered forever.