Latest news with #Mbappé
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
PSG's Ousmane Dembélé: ‘Maybe with Kylian Mbappé we would have been even better.'
It has become the narrative of the season: Paris Saint-Germain, without Kylian Mbappé (26) are a better team. Last season, PSG won the title at a canter, as they did this season, however, without the France captain, the club have reached the UEFA Champions League final. Towards the end of last season, when it became evident that Mbappé would leave PSG to join Real Madrid on a free transfer, Luis Enrique prophesied that Les Parisiens would be even better without him this season. It was a comment that, at the time, raised eyebrows, however, the Spaniard's quote has certainly aged well. Advertisement With PSG showing significant improvement this year, Mbappé's departure has been identified as a turning point and one that has set the club on the path towards the Champions League final, where they will face Inter Milan on Saturday night. However, speaking at the pre-match press conference, Ousmane Dembélé (28) contested the link drawn. 'Is the game easier without Mbappé? No, maybe with him we would have been even better this season. Mbappé had a dream in his career, to play at Real Madrid… and PSG continued on its path. There is a before and an after Kylian,' admitted the Frenchman. Following the conclusion of the UCL final, the pair will link up on international duty with Les Bleus. GFFN | Luke Entwistle
France 24
a day ago
- Sport
- France 24
Champions League final: How Luis Enrique stripped PSG of their stars – and made them better
When Kylian Mbappé made public his decision to leave Paris last season, ending the club's 'Galactico' era, Luis Enrique sounded unfazed by the loss of the world's most coveted striker. 'Our game does not consist in letting Mbappé do what he wants,' the PSG coach told Spanish reporters, in a typically blunt statement. He added: 'That was the old philosophy (of the club), which never won a major trophy.' In two seasons at the helm, Luis Enrique has added two more Ligue 1 titles and as many French Cups to PSG's rapidly expanding silverware, though he knows that neither qualify as 'major' trophies for the club owned by Qatar Sports Investments (QSI). Champions League football is the real measure of success for a PSG coach, and the Spaniard has already improved on his predecessors' record. After leading the French Champions to the semi-finals last season, the former Real Madrid and Barcelona player is now just one match away from the title PSG have craved for so long – and for which QSI has spent a staggering €2.1 billion in transfers alone. Victory against Inter Milan in Munich would add his name to an elite group of two-club winners of Europe's most prestigious title, joining the likes of Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho. Out with the old guard Prior to his arrival, PSG were best known for their expensive Champions League fiascos, from the infamous 2017 'Remontada' in Barcelona to their home collapse against Manchester United two years later. The Spaniard, who plotted the 'Remontada' on the Blaugrana bench, says he accepted the Paris job on one condition: that he be allowed to mould the team as he pleased, ditching the celebrity culture that gave top stars priority over football coherence. 'I never imagined myself coaching PSG because their policy was to attract the biggest superstars. But now they want to change,' he told the Spanish documentary filmmakers who followed him last season. Luis Enrique arrived in Paris with a simple but firm mantra: no one head sticking out. He began by clearing out the old guard, starting with Neymar, the frustratingly inconsistent poster boy for PSG's bling-bling era. He was equally unsentimental in parting with the club's longtime midfield anchor Marco Verratti, a darling of the fans whose purportedly poor lifestyle was incompatible with the stringent work ethos demanded by the new coach. A fitness fanatic who once ran the legendary Marathon de Sables, a 155-mile race over six days in the Sahara, Luis Enrique introduced gruelling training sessions, strict tactical demands and an insistence on collective responsibility, with no player absolved of defensive duties – not even Mbappé. When the star striker bowed out the following summer, fuelling talk of PSG's fast-declining star power, Luis Enrique sounded typically upbeat about the season ahead. 'I'd rather have four players who score 12 goals each than one who scores 40,' he quipped. 'It adds up to more goals overall.' 'No plan B' After two years on the job, and as many transfer sessions tailored to his needs, Luis Enrique now has a squad ideally suited to his style of football, based on maximum possession, rapid movement and stifling pressing. It's a style of play that brought him a Champions League title a decade ago as Barcelona's coach – but which hasn't always worked out for his teams. His stint as Spain coach (2018-2022) famously ended in a World Cup defeat to Morocco that saw La Roja hold 77% of the ball, complete more than 1,000 passes, and yet manage only one shot on goal. Spain's attack was so blunted they even failed to score in the penalty shootout, despite the coach's assurance that each player had taken 1,000 penalties in practice. As the former Spanish international Iago Aspas put it, 'Luis Enrique had a very clear game plan, and when plan A didn't work, there was no plan B.' Earlier this season, PSG's Champions League campaign appeared to be heading much the same way as the French champions dominated games but proved unable to score. When the coach was quizzed about his game plan after a defeat to Arsenal in October, his reply came across as both arrogant and rude. 'I have no intention of explaining my tactics,' he answered tersely. 'You wouldn't understand them.' Defeat in Munich a month later left PSG staring at an early exit, before a thrilling comeback win over Manchester City in January kicked off a triumphant tour of England that saw them overwhelm Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal in succession. After the Reds' defeat on penalties at Anfield, Liverpool coach Arne Slot heaped praise on his counterpart for turning PSG into 'Europe's best'. 'Luis Enrique made an incredible team,' he said. 'So much pace, so much work rate, so much quality in the midfield.' 'If you don't defend, someone will take your place' While critics have bristled at Luis Enrique's sometimes abrasive tone, his no-nonsense approach and entertaining, forward-minded game have helped turn the Parisian upstarts into a more likeable team, earning the respect of their peers. The end of the superstar era has also nurtured the impression that the Gulf-funded outfit have become an ordinary club, when in fact they are still vastly outspending their rivals. The names may be slightly less eye-catching than in recent years, but it's hard to see who else could have coughed up €70 million to sign Napoli's Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in the January transfer window. The versatile Georgian international has come to embody the flexibility Luis Enrique demands from his players, his ability to shift seamlessly between attack and defence adding an element of unpredictability to PSG's game. When asked to comment on the team's selflessness and abnegation, qualities so lacking in past seasons, striker Ousmane Dembélé gave a simple answer last month: 'The coach just kept telling us, 'If you don't press and don't defend, someone will take your place'. So, we all defend.' Long mocked for his erratic finishing, Dembélé has morphed into a goal-scoring machine this season, racking up 33 goals in 45 matches – more than in the previous five seasons combined. His transformation from mercurial winger to ruthless goal scorer owes much to the tactical innovations introduced by Luis Enrique, whose decision to place the versatile, ambidextrous forward at the heart of the Parisian attack has allowed him to make full use of his equally accurate feet. Dembélé is not the only one to have hit the 12-goal mark, with Bradley Barcola (21 goals), Gonçalo Ramos (18) and Désiré Doué (13) also vindicating the coach's pre-season forecast. Add Kvaratshkhelia (6 goals since January) to the mix, and PSG fans will be hoping the squad's youthful, multi-pronged attack is too much to handle for the Nerazzuri 's ageing legs. That's unless Inter Milan coach Simone Inzaghi can come up with an antidote for the Parisians' intoxicating game – and Luis Enrique has no 'Plan B' in store.
NBC News
a day ago
- Business
- NBC News
They lost Messi, Mbappé and Neymar — but may finally win club soccer's biggest prize
In the summer of 2021, Paris Saint-Germain had seemingly everything it needed to get the one thing it didn't have: a reputation as one of global soccer's big winners. Its roster appeared built out of a video game. Kylian Mbappé, the 22-year-old World Cup champion from France, alongside Brazilian superstar Neymar and, in a breathtaking signing, Lionel Messi, the Argentine many considered the world's best player of all time. The collection of three of the world's best goal-scorers — and a total payroll of nearly $430 million — was made possible by the club's equally staggering resources. Since 2011, PSG has been owned by an arm of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, which spent freely to establish it among the world's most accomplished clubs. Although PSG routinely won France's top soccer division, it had never won the Champions League, Europe's annual and most prestigious club tournament, and only once played for the title. By some metrics, the two-year run featuring Mbappé, Messi and Neymar was a smashing success. Star-studded PSG raked in more than $1 billion in revenue, according to the club. But by exiting the Champions League in the round of 16 in 2022 and 2023, and with Mbappé, Neymar and Messi playing together in only about a third of their potential games, PSG never came close to conquering Europe on the field. All three stars eventually departed, replaced by younger, less expensive successors. For most clubs, that would have signaled the start of a rebuild. Instead, just two years later, a less-heralded, less-expensive version of PSG could win the most coveted title that eluded its starrier predecessors when it plays Internazionale of Milan in the Champions League final Saturday in Munich. A Champions League trophy would be notable not only for PSG, one of the most prominent clubs never to have won the tournament. Only one team from France has ever won it, and that was 32 years ago. PSG enters as the favorite because under manager Luis Enrique, it operates no longer as a star system but as a team, said NBC Sports analyst Robbie Mustoe, a former English Premier League player. 'There's a lot of evidence that having star players in a team doesn't make a team, and PSG is such a great example with Neymar and Lionel Messi and Mbappé and everybody else they've had there,' Mustoe said. 'It takes an all-around team, and you can't really have passengers too much now. And what I mean by that is players that switch on when they have the ball and switch off when they don't have the ball. 'PSG is such an amazing example of this, where they changed the manager, they obviously got rid of all the star players, they went younger, they went hungrier.' Even with Mbappé only 22 years old in 2021, the average age on PSG's roster that season was 27.8, two years older than on its average opponent, thanks to 34-year-old Messi's joining 29-year-old Neymar and 33-year-old Ángel Di Maria. This season, the team's average age is 25, two years younger than that of its average opponent, a reflection of PSG's decision after the 2023 season to "completely change its strategy" of roster construction, Alice Lefebvre, a reporter for Agence France-Presse who covers PSG, said by email. "The club's management have stopped obsessing over the Champions League, as they had done until now, and have officially stated that they are giving themselves time to build a project around the young players and youngsters coming through the Parisian training program," Lefebvre wrote. "As the season progressed, despite some internal tensions between a few players and Luis Enrique at the start of the season, a new spirit began to permeate the team. Everyone plays for everyone, and everyone presses for the ball, just as the coach wants." Enrique and sporting director Luís Campos recruited younger players including French winger Désiré Doué, 20, a breakout star for whom the team paid $54 million to acquire last summer, João Neves and Willian Pacho. The oldest mainstay is 31-year-old Brazilian defender Marquinhos. The majority of the team is either in its prime, such as leading scorer Ousmane Dembélé, or entering it, like 22-year-old Bradley Barcola, whom Enrique has called 'the best passer in Ligue 1; he's one of the best dribblers in Europe.' The arrival in January of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from Italy strengthened PSG's ability to attack. Weaving it all together is Enrique, who was used to high-profile, high-pressure jobs before, after having managed Barcelona to a Champions League title, then coached the Spanish national team. When PSG hired him in 2023 after Messi had left and Neymar was in the process of exiting, Enrique arrived with a specific project, Lefebvre wrote, of getting young players who would defend and attack in unison. In Champions League competition, PSG owns the fourth-highest passing accuracy and the third-highest possession percentage. "As long as Luis Enrique is here, the strategy will remain one of youth rather than stars," Lefebvre wrote. Enrique was also tasked with overhauling a change in attitude. The team would be built no longer on the potential brilliance of three players, but on the doggedness of all 11. 'A Paris Saint-Germain player has to get used to starting, coming off the bench or even not being called up,' Enrique told reporters amid the team's Champions League run. 'We make sure that every player who comes on is at 100% and gives his all.' Perhaps the coach's best work has been coaxing a career-best season out of Dembélé, whose potential had always been evident. Barcelona signed Dembélé in 2017 with ambitions of his becoming the successor to its outgoing star Neymar. Instead, during six inconsistent seasons combined, he scored 24 goals and assisted on 34 more. When PSG needed its own Neymar replacement in 2023, it placed its hopes on Dembélé, too. This season, his second for PSG, Dembélé scored 21 goals during the domestic season and eight more in 14 Champions League matches, and he added 10 assists between the two. Enrique's coaching has mimicked Dembélé's role earlier in his career at clubs in France and Germany, allowing for 'more freedom to go everywhere on the pitch,' Dembélé said this week. 'I have my bearings,' he said 'I just try to create space and to cause a bit of chaos in midfield. This has been paying off so far.' Relative to its past, PSG reined in its payroll this season to $220 million, a number that is nonetheless still larger than that of the three next-high-spending teams in France's top division combined and that would also rank second-highest in England's Premier League, the world's richest domestic soccer league. What is different is that now PSG could have a trophy to show for all that spending. While past PSG teams weren't prepared to 'suffer,' said Mustoe — a buzzword in global soccer with the loose definition of a team's ability to endure its struggles — this year, 'they have a team that suffers with immense ability,' he said. PSG proved it during the knockout stage of the Champions League, when advancing relies on the aggregate score of a two-game series. PSG lost in the round of 16 to Liverpool at home, then held firm to win on the road on penalties and advance. After it beat Aston Villa in the quarterfinals, it won again on the road to open its semifinal against Arsenal, then advanced to only the club's second Champions League final with a home win on May 7. 'If we were to analyze everything that has happened in the UEFA Champions League this season, I think it would make a great thriller or horror film or even a very good series, because it has had a bit of everything,' Enrique, who managed Barcelona to a Champions League title a decade ago, said this week. 'I think we should be proud of what we've achieved. However, we have to finish the job because what we're really aiming for is to make history.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
From Final to Final: Five Years in the Making
Paris Saint-Germain is in the 2025 UEFA Champions League final. If you had told someone that was going to happen just one year ago, they would have probably snickered at you. Because just one year ago, the club's most talented star announced he was leaving the team for allegedly greener pastures. After years of speculation, denials, renewals, and tantrums, Kylian Mbappé officially abandoned the capital of France for the capital of Spain. Seeing as Mbappé was the only thing still holding up the Parisian project, many expected a deep decline and years in the footballing wilderness. Those people weren't paying attention at all. And while some knew that PSG's solid project would survive and eventually thrive, none of them could have imagined the rapid success that the club had achieved in a short 12 months. On January 22, at around 22:15 in France, absolutely nobody would have bet on what would have happened next. Down 2-0 at home to a struggling City side that hardly deserved such luck, it appeared the campaign for glory would not even reach the knockout stage. That is, until Bradley Barcola nutmegged Mathias Nunes, and the paradigm of European Football completely shifted. From that point, Paris has been an unstoppable train headed to Munich, where they will face Inter Milan for a chance at the club's first Champions League Trophy. And again, while some might call what PSG have done an 'overnight' success. This story is five years in the making and started the last time Paris Saint-Germain made a Champions League Final, on August 23, 2020. Advertisement Read the full article by subscribing to Ensemble PSG on Substack The Final Against Bayern Matt Childs/Pool via Getty Images During the COVID-19 pandemic, everything wasn't as it usually was. After months of absence, a single elimination tournament in Portugal concluded the Champions League knockout rounds. A tournament that Paris went into injured and aging, but with a togetherness not really seen before in that group. A stunning come-from-behind win against Atalanta, followed by a convincing 3-0 win against RB Leipzig, put the PSG of Neymar Jr., Mbappé, Angel Di Maria, Thiago Silva, Marco Verratti, and Keylor Navas just one win away from a European triumph after years of tragedy. Mired amongst the real tragedy of the pandemic, no fans were allowed to watch from the stands. The tournament had fire and passion, but only from those participating. Everyone else had to watch from their homes. Advertisement They would face a juggernaut in FC Bayern Munich. A version of the club that many would say was the best of the last 10 seasons. Paris gave it a real shot, but in reality, it was clear that Bayern Munich were the more deserving side. A Kingsley Coman goal and suffocating defense led to a 1-0 defeat in Lisbon. A Failed Rebuild Most realized at that point this version of the PSG project had reached its course. A thin squad with aging stars that gave everything needed to be turned over. But the allure of being that close made the leaders of the capital club take another run with that core of players. PSG would lose Silva after that game (only for him to finally win his Champions League with Chelsea FC the following year), and Edinson Cavani (the former top goal scorer in club history). They were replaced by third-choice center-back Presnel Kimpembe and professional lightning rod Mauro Icardi. Besides those moves, nothing of real substance was done by the then-sporting director, Leonardo, to strengthen the club. What followed was a disastrous fall, which led to the sacking of the then-manager, Thomas Tuchel, the day before Christmas. He was subsequently replaced in January by former Tottenham Hotspur manager and former PSG captain, Mauricio Pochettino. While it was too late to save Paris from losing out on the Ligue 1 trophy to Lille OSC, they did manage to scrape together knockout round qualifications against FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich, mostly on the back of Mbappé's brilliance. However, the tank ran out of gas in the semis with a 4-1 aggregate defeat against Manchester City, where PSG finished both matches with 10 men. Another close call, but in the end, the core of that incarnation of Les Parisians clearly needed a reboot. Advertisement Remember back to that point. The club was built from the front line back. With a constantly injured Neymar and an over-thirty Di Maria. Mbappé and whatever striker of the week PSG happened to put out that day. Behind that was a nearly thirty-year-old Verratti who had immense wear on his metaphorical tires, Idrissa Gueye, who was a once or twice a month performer at the highest level, and a tenacious but nevertheless underwhelming Leandro Paredes. Defensively, it was Marquinhos and Kimpembe (who at that time was still a year or so from a massive injury decline) and the worst collection of fullbacks that any elite team had at the time. Alessandro Florenzi, Juan Bernat, Colin Dagba, and Mitchell Bakker were just some of the names dragged out there for the elite wingers of the sport to blow by, and honestly, by the not-so-elite wingers as well. In goal was the spectacular but also over-the-hill Navas, their best goalkeeper since Bernard Lama, but that honestly wasn't saying much. Sporting Director Leonardo also had another problem. He had extended the top stars of the club to 2024 and beyond, leaving him very little room to maneuver. The club had to get better, but it was going to be close to impossible to do so with the terrible financial situation that he and club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi (let's be honest) put them in. What followed was the most consequential window in the club's history (for good and for bad). Messi Comes to ParisLeo started with the major purchase of the window, which addressed the awful fullback position. He spent €68 million to pry young right-back Achraf Hakimi from Inter Milan. A former Real Madrid youth product, he was burgeoning into one of the top fullbacks in the sport at Inter. His move would be the genesis of PSG's rebuild. The 'Big Bang' from which everything followed. Unfortunately for Leonardo, that was about the only bit of money he had. Everything else would either be a loan deal or a free transfer. Included in that window was Sergio Ramos, a solid but aging center-back, midfield engine Georginio Wijnaldum, and a loan move for a little-known left-back from Sporting Lisbon, named Nuno Mendes. Advertisement Another free transfer that was controversial at the time was a young Italian goaltender who had just been the MVP at the delayed UEFA European Championships. Gianluigi Donnarumma was one of the last Mino Raiola clients before his passing, and with the relationship the two had, he was shuffled off to Paris after his contract expired at AC Milan. Competition for the one competent goalie PSG had in two decades was a bold strategy that would only pay off years after Leonardo had left. Oh, and don't forget the small free transfer of Lionel Messi. Not in the original plans, but with Barcelona breaking the Argentinian's contract after they learned the club was broke as hell, Messi became available, and PSG had no choice but to scoop him up. This formed a super attacking line of Messi, Neymar, and Mbappé. A ceremony was held at the Parc des Princes where all five transfers were put on display. An embarrassment of riches that would slowly turn into an embarrassment of another kind in time. Lionel Messi never quite fit with PSG. Some would chalk it up to cultural issues like the language or the environment. But it was mostly because PSG didn't really need him. They needed midfielders, defenders, and depth. He wasn't bad for Paris; in fact, the numbers were quite good for a player his age. But you'd notice every time the big three, and even the big four with Di Maria, were on the field, Pochettino and his managerial crew couldn't find a way to make it work. Mainly because the field was so tilted in one direction that PSG were essentially defending with seven to eight men per match. The Big Three Take On Real Madrid The league form was fine, and the Champions League campaign started with a decent run of form. However, finishing second to Manchester City in their group would lead to a Round of 16 matchup with Real Madrid. As star-studded an affair as you could get, and a chance for Paris to prove their theory of the case. Could a super team that had been so close before, that had just added the consensus best player of his generation, if not all time, make the final run to the title? The first match at the Parc would prove to be a sluggish affair. Neymar was on the bench to start due to another injury issue. The game started with the typical PSG trick of getting in the box and missing chances, but it was very clear from the beginning that PSG were the better side. Actually, Real Madrid were quite bad, barely sniffing the PSG goal. Advertisement It took until stoppage time for Mbappé to finish the match with an exceptional goal to give Paris the lead headed into the second leg. Of note, Messi's missed penalty in the 62nd minute prevented a much bigger night for Les Parisiens. None of it was overly convincing, but it would set PSG up with an edge. One that they would extend in the first half with another Mbappé goal. His brilliance over the last two Champions League seasons had given PSG fans hope that one uniquely gifted megastar could carry a flawed roster with stars. It was 2-0 headed into the second leg in Madrid. PSG had dominated the tie for all intents and purposes. Mbappé had been the best player by far, and all signs pointed to qualification. Until the 61st minute, until an ancient Karim Benzema stepped on stage. The collapse began with PSG intently driving for a second goal with an Mbappé finish called back for offside, and a through ball that Mbappé couldn't quite gather. Paris was throwing all the punches and had complete control. But you never really have control, not against that team, not in that stadium. What followed in the 61st minute was a slow back pass from Kimpembe to Donnarumma, who fiddled on the ball waiting for Marquinhos to come open. He never did. Benzema pounced and forced a loose ball that Vinicius Junior won and quickly passed back to Benzema for the finish. Real needed three to advance and had gotten one, but only one. A poor mistake for sure, but no time to lose one's head. However, 15 minutes later, PSG would completely lose their heads. PSG were dazed, but still hanging in. A Luka Modrić run followed by an incisive pass to a young Vinicius put the PSG defense on ice skates. One more ball to Benzema (with Hakimi keeping him onside) led to the finish, which tied the match. This was immediately followed by a lost pass, another through ball to Vinicius, and another Benzema finish off a pitiful clearance attempt by captain Marquinhos. A shocking, but honestly not so shocking, ending to another shocking but honestly not so shocking Champions League campaign. A Messi free kick from ten yards outside the box didn't have a prayer, and just like that, it was over. Continue reading by subscribing to Ensemble PSG on Substack
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Chelsea set to make European football history this Wednesday night? 👀
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here. The first to... This Wednesday evening, Real Betis and Chelsea face off in the Europa Conference League final. If they win, the Blues would make European football history. Chelsea would indeed become the very first club to win ALL European competitions. The English club has already won the Champions League (2012, 2021), the Cup Winners' Cup (1978, 1998), and the Europa League (2013, 2019). C1, C2, C3. C4 this Wednesday evening? PS: You can follow the C4 final with us right here. - This club finishes the season undefeated... but misses the title - OL: Rayan Cherki transferred to a European giant? - New number for Mbappé at Real Madrid 📸 Eddie Keogh - 2025 Getty Images
