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The Independent
3 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Why the Champions League is just the start for PSG's new breed of winners
In the afterglow of victory, Luis Enrique exchanged his trademark black top for a T-shirt bearing the message 'Champions of Europe'. So did many another. The temptation is to wonder that Paris Saint-Germain got them printed in 2011, when Qatar Sports Investments bought the club, and had them stored in a cupboard in the Parc des Princes ever since. An ambition was finally realised in Munich; impressively so. After the annual collapses, the near misses, the late goals from Sergi Roberto and Marcus Rashford came the cathartic 5-0 demolition of Internazionale, one of the genuine aristocrats of European football humiliated by the nouveaux riches with designs on becoming part of the establishment. It transpired that Arne Slot was ahead of the curve in calling PSG the best team in Europe. Over the subsequent months, many another reached that conclusion, too. The club who used to choke at the business end of the Champions League peaked when it mattered most; in itself, that is proof of the transformative impact of Luis Enrique. His cultural revolution has entailed ending the search for proven winners and building a young side who instead won. But it can be difficult to shed a club's identity. There was something quintessentially PSG about last season's 4-1 battering at Newcastle, or their semi-final defeat to Borussia Dortmund, when they hit the woodwork so often it needed a concussion test, but did not find the net. This year felt more of the same. Some 50 minutes into their seventh group game, PSG were – somehow – 2-0 down to Manchester City, outside the top 24, facing the ignominy of their worst European campaign under Qatari ownership. It instead became the best. PSG's modern Champions League history has been an extended exercise in schadenfreude. In Germany, home of the concept, the startlingly brilliant display of Desire Doue could not camouflage who was missing: Kylian Mbappe. It is no coincidence PSG finally won the Champions League without Lionel Messi, Neymar and Mbappe. There wasn't a superstar shortcut to glory. It is instructive if there will be an annual procession to it now. It is easy to predict so after a final, yet such forecasts often do not stand the test of time. Manchester City's 2023 triumph did not herald several more: if they regain the trophy, it will be with a very different team. In the last dozen years, only Real Madrid have won more than one Champions League. Right now, however, PSG look far better placed than many another supposed contender – City, Inter, Bayern Munich – to be celebrating again in Budapest next summer. What can be said without fear of contradiction is that PSG are young enough. They will have the resources. What may be pertinent is that they seem to have turned a deficiency – the ease with which they win Ligue Un – into an advantage. For years, the theory was that it did not properly prepare them for Champions League summit clashes. Yet time on the training ground with Luis Enrique and the physicality to blitz opponents can do that. PSG should see a future in their magnificent midfield. It is frightening how good Doue is even before his 20th birthday. If they can conjure more goals from the compelling Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, he will seem unstoppable. It may mean that questions instead surround their unlikely talisman. Luis Enrique argued Ousmane Dembele should win the Ballon d'Or for his defensive work alone. But after 28 goals in five years, can Dembele have another 33-goal season or was this the most wondrous of one-offs? PSG's new striker-less model suggests that, whatever the answer, Luis Enrique will want wingers who can interchange positions and runners who can work. It helps, too, that PSG no longer overlook the cradles of talent that are Paris or Ligue Un. Doue was bought from Rennes, Bradley Barcola from Lyon. It proved a better business model than raiding the Nou Camp, beyond getting the transformative manager who is a Barcelona alumnus and who became the seventh manager to win the competition with two different clubs. He altered the ethos. PSG stopped copying and found their own way. In one respect, they helped remedy a historical imbalance: this was just a second European Cup win for a French club. In another, they are a global club who have ruined the competitiveness of Ligue Un. It is the fifth domestic league in Europe, but a distant fifth. With its diminishing television rights, and broadcasters struggling to make it pay, other clubs can be financially challenged, often forced to sell. And yet the initial French surge in the Champions League this season came from the relatively impoverished. PSG underachieved in the group stages. The rest overachieved. Lille defeated Real and Atletico Madrid, Monaco beat Barcelona and Aston Villa. Brest took more points than Juventus and City. But they were beaten 10-0 on aggregate by PSG when the force from the capital gelled. Then PSG took aim across the English Channel, eliminating Liverpool and Villa and Arsenal. The Italian challengers from Inter were then vanquished, PSG's arc of triumph complete.
The Guardian
25-04-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Chelsea face herculean task to topple Champions League giants Barcelona
The enormity of Chelsea's task in their European semi-final second leg can be summed up in a few ominous statistics. For starters, their opponents, Barcelona, have never lost a two-leg Women's Champions League tie after securing a first-leg victory. They have won 17 consecutive two-leg ties in the tournament and, this time, the eight-time semi-finalists are three goals ahead. For Chelsea to knock them out from 4-1 down will require something out of the ordinary; historic in fact. Since Europe's elite women's club competition was rebranded to be known as the Women's Champions League in 2009-10, no team have overturned a three-goal deficit to progress on aggregate. The men's edition has delivered a string of unforgettable comebacks, from a 95th-minute Sergi Roberto goal completing Barcelona's 6-5 aggregate win over Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, and a corner taken quickly by Trent Alexander Arnold at Anfield, to Roma rising from their ruins to eliminate Barcelona on away goals in 2018. In the Women's Champions League, the closest to a three-goal deficit being overturned was a last-32 tie between Glasgow City and BIIK Kazygurt of Kazakhstan, when the Scottish club won the second leg 4-1 to level at 4-4 on aggregate but were eliminated on away goals. To make matters worse for Chelsea, the away goals rule is no longer in operation, somewhat lessening the value of Sandy Baltimore's strike in last Sunday's first leg. Those three examples of men's game comebacks involved Barcelona but their women's side are not used to such rollercoasters; they have not lost a match by a three-goal margin or more since the 2019 European final when beaten 4-1 by a Lyon side that included the England right-back Lucy Bronze, who will line up for Chelsea against her old side on Sunday hoping to reproduce such a performance. A three-goal win would merely force extra time. The last time Barcelona lost a game by a four-goal margin or more was in the autumn of 2012 when Arsenal were 4-0 winners in the second leg of a 7-0 aggregate victory. It was a night when the Scotland defender Jen Beattie scored a hat-trick. Yes, you read that correctly: a Beattie treble against Barça. How times change. That was a Barcelona side unrecognisable from the one trying to defend their Champions League title. Only Alexia Putellas, then 18, remains in the team. Barcelona are trying to reach their fifth consecutive final and have won seven of their past 10 matches against English sides. To offer Chelsea fans a glimmer of hope, it should not be forgotten that their club were responsible for surely the joint-greatest comeback in Women's Champions League history, when they battled back from a two-goal first-leg deficit to beat Manchester City 3-2 on aggregate in this season's quarter-finals, 24 hours after Arsenal had done the same against Real Madrid, on a dramatic couple of March nights in London. That recovery showed what Chelsea are capable of at their best; three goals in the first half from Baltimore, Nathalie Björn and Mayra Ramírez came in a spell of intense pressure that City could not cope with. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion This time, though, there will be no night-game atmosphere under the lights. It is a 2pm BST kick-off, amid Uefa's persistence with scheduling the women's European semi-finals on weekends, despite the clashes with a seemingly endless list of other domestic action. Whether the Stamford Bridge crowd can stir up the atmosphere witnessed there on some electric nights under the floodlights at women's games, such as knocking out the eight-time champions Lyon on penalties in 2023 and overpowering a sock-less Arsenal a year later remains to be seen. The hosts have sold about 25,000 tickets. If those hopeful Chelsea fans are not to go home disappointed, their team will need to show a huge improvement in possession from the first leg, when they touched the ball inside Barcelona's box 12 times and completed just over half as many passes as their hosts. Second best in almost every department, they were unable to progress up the pitch with the confidence Women's Super League viewers are used to seeing. A rousing speech by Bronze, issued to her teammates on the pitch at full-time at Estadi Johan Cruyff, delivered a message that Chelsea must not give up, that they must believe they can fight back. It would be wrong to write them off but the form guide suggests Barcelona are the least likely team on the planet to relinquish a 4-1 lead.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Chelsea face herculean task to topple Champions League giants Barcelona
The enormity of Chelsea's task in their European semi-final second leg can be summed up in a few ominous statistics. For starters, their opponents, Barcelona, have never lost a two-leg Women's Champions League tie after securing a first-leg victory. They have won 17 consecutive two-leg ties in the tournament and, this time, the eight-time semi-finalists are three goals ahead. For Chelsea to knock them out from 4-1 down will require something out of the ordinary; historic in fact. Since Europe's elite women's club competition was rebranded to be known as the Women's Champions League in 2009-10, no team have overturned a three-goal deficit to progress on aggregate. Advertisement Related: Barcelona show gulf in quality again as stunned Chelsea hope for miracle | Sophie Downey The men's edition has delivered a string of unforgettable comebacks, from a 95th-minute Sergi Roberto goal completing Barcelona's 6-5 aggregate win over Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, and a corner taken quickly by Trent Alexander Arnold at Anfield, to Roma rising from their ruins to eliminate Barcelona on away goals in 2018. In the Women's Champions League, the closest to a three-goal deficit being overturned was a last-32 tie between Glasgow City and BIIK Kazygurt of Kazakhstan, when the Scottish club won the second leg 4-1 to level at 4-4 on aggregate but were eliminated on away goals. To make matters worse for Chelsea, the away goals rule is no longer in operation, somewhat lessening the value of Sandy Baltimore's strike in last Sunday's first leg. Those three examples of men's game comebacks involved Barcelona but their women's side are not used to such rollercoasters; they have not lost a match by a three-goal margin or more since the 2019 European final when beaten 4-1 by a Lyon side that included the England right-back Lucy Bronze, who will line up for Chelsea against her old side on Sunday hoping to reproduce such a performance. Advertisement A three-goal win would merely force extra time. The last time Barcelona lost a game by a four-goal margin or more was in the autumn of 2012 when Arsenal were 4-0 winners in the second leg of a 7-0 aggregate victory. It was a night when the Scotland defender Jen Beattie scored a hat-trick. Yes, you read that correctly: a Beattie treble against Barça. How times change. That was a Barcelona side unrecognisable from the one trying to defend their Champions League title. Only Alexia Putellas, then 18, remains in the team. Barcelona are trying to reach their fifth consecutive final and have won seven of their past 10 matches against English sides. To offer Chelsea fans a glimmer of hope, it should not be forgotten that their club were responsible for surely the joint-greatest comeback in Women's Champions League history, when they battled back from a two-goal first-leg deficit to beat Manchester City 3-2 on aggregate in this season's quarter-finals, 24 hours after Arsenal had done the same against Real Madrid, on a dramatic couple of March nights in London. That recovery showed what Chelsea are capable of at their best; three goals in the first half from Baltimore, Nathalie Björn and Mayra Ramírez came in a spell of intense pressure that City could not cope with. This time, though, there will be no night-game atmosphere under the lights. It is a 2pm BST kick-off, amid Uefa's persistence with scheduling the women's European semi-finals on weekends, despite the clashes with a seemingly endless list of other domestic action. Whether the Stamford Bridge crowd can stir up the atmosphere witnessed there on some electric nights under the floodlights at women's games, such as knocking out the eight-time champions Lyon on penalties in 2023 and overpowering a sock-less Arsenal a year later remains to be seen. The hosts have sold about 25,000 tickets. Advertisement If those hopeful Chelsea fans are not to go home disappointed, their team will need to show a huge improvement in possession from the first leg, when they touched the ball inside Barcelona's box 12 times and completed just over half as many passes as their hosts. Second best in almost every department, they were unable to progress up the pitch with the confidence Women's Super League viewers are used to seeing. A rousing speech by Bronze, issued to her teammates on the pitch at full-time at Estadi Johan Cruyff, delivered a message that Chelsea must not give up, that they must believe they can fight back. It would be wrong to write them off but the form guide suggests Barcelona are the least likely team on the planet to relinquish a 4-1 lead.
