Football’s first French Dynasty
On May 30, Luis Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain team defeated English Champions Arsenal 5–3 on penalties in the 2026 UEFA Champions League Final in Budapest. In so doing, they became the first defending champions to retain the trophy since Zidane’s Real Madrid in 2017 and the 9th overall club to win the European Cup in two or more consecutive seasons.
They have joined the pantheon of European footballing royalty seated alongside Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Liverpool among others. This is remarkable considering that PSG was founded in 1970, making them embryonic in footballing terms. In the same vein, they only became realistically competitive after the Qatari government began investing money (sportswashing) in the club in 2011, after it had fallen into relative obscurity.
As of writing, they have spent a whopping €2.38 billion on player purchases, making the first and second most expensive transfers in history in the process. I freely admit my bias; I loathe PSG and detest everything they stand for. That being said, they have been the most entertaining team of the past two years. Sweeping the European Cup in swashbuckling style last year beating Inter Milan by a record 5–0 and retaining it against Arsenal by controlling the tempo. They have dominated opponents with one-sided possession statistics reminiscent of Pep’s Barcelona.
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Luis Enrique’s tactical leadership and acumen have evolved tremendously in the 3 years he’s spent in the Paris hot seat and are the most important factors in their sporting success. Nasser Al-Khelafi has shed the childish desire to emulate the Galactico method of having the most expensive and famous attackers. Instead, he has handed the reins to a Spanish perfectionist who made the bold decision to remove Neymar and, more controversially, Kylian Mbappe. Instead of an attack-heavy approach emphasising individual talent, PSG have embraced a synergistic approach where all players are willing to sacrifice for the good of the team.
This is a video which circulated 3 seasons ago where Luis Enrique was seen lecturing Kylian Mbappe alone in the dressing room by explaining to him that what made Michael Jordan so successful is that he led the press of the Chicago Bulls. You have to take the game by the balls and lead by example," he told him. In football, you can’t simply wait around idly for the ball to land at your feet. What you do outside of possession matters just as much, if not more, than what you do in possession.
The fact that PSG has won these two Champions Leagues in a row without both of their most expensive signings has vindicated Enrique and proves that balance and flexibility are the most important aspects of a football team. Sir Alex Ferguson is famously quoted as having said, “Attack wins you games, Defence wins you championships.”
During the early part of the 2024–25 season, in the 3rd and final episode of a Movistar+ series about behind the scenes at PSG Lucho said, “Next year, I want to control all the players. All of them, without exception.”These words echoed what he said at the end of the 2023–24 season where he boldly asserted that the team would become even better without Kylian Mbappe.
At the time, the Spanish coach once again exhibited rigidity in his respective game ideas and explained: “If a player goes where he wants, that implies that there are game situations that I cannot control.”In 2025–26, this came to fruition when PSG retained the European Cup. An unprecedented encore which warrants a chapeau for the way it was achieved, showing that the whole is greater than the sum of its’ parts.
If 11 players on one team run non-stop, and only 10 players run for the opposition it will be as if they are red carded every time there is a turnover in possession.
