“I'm not here to win the Champions League. I'm here to build a team.”
These were Luis Enrique's words, eight months ago at the beginning of the 2024-25 season. It was the beginning of the year 1 of his Paris Saint-Germain project: an era of Mbappé Post-Kylian, a policy of not great egos and not great stars, and a new trip with a young, talented and malleable team.
His words sounded as a revolution for a club created by superstars, made for superstars and led by superstar. He also felt as one, and heading to the quarterfinals of the Wednesday Champions League against Aston Villa, it is fair to say that the evolution of the revolution is far ahead of the expected.
In private last summer, the 54 -year -old Spanish was honest and transparent about the amount of time he felt that such renewal would take, predicting two years of work before reaching the level he wanted and seeing a team in which everyone would play hard, fight and work with each other. On Saturday, while PSG celebrated the 13th French title in its history, which arrived during a season in which they are still undefeated with six games for the end, Alexandre Dujeux, the Manager of Angers, did not contain his praise.
“I think they do a very beautiful champion. Everyone attacks; everyone defends themselves. I enjoy when I see this. Fantastic I find it,” he admitted after the 1-0 defeat of his team in the Princes Parc des confirmed the coronation of the Parisians.
In just his second season at the club, Luis Enrique has already lived in a certain sense three different times with PSG. Last season, with Mbappé and the limitations that its status represented, the team was built around the captain of France. Although Luis Enrique did everything possible to try to make the striker change, work harder and be more a team player, the team did not like the team, which was not his and not built as he wanted.
Then, from August 2024 to the beginning of 2025, it was about planting the seeds of this new team and advancing with its plans. The priorities for Luis Enrique: find the correct number 9, teach the movement with and without the ball, transmit instructions for their presence and counter-pressure, improve the players individually (namely, vitinha, Bradley Barcola, Désiré Doué and Willian Pacho) and instill a collective mentality of struggle.
It was not easy, in particular the intense criticism that he and the team faced after their phase of the League in the Champions League: it took them to the first day 7 confirm their place in the qualifying stages, and some surprising raffle (including those back on their back Never, he never dedicated himself to his team.
“If I fail, it will be with my ideas. I will continue following them. I am getting there,” he said in November.
Once again, in private, Luis Enrique was letting team officials knew that he could feel that the team improved and really began to understand what he wanted. The players could also feel it: the training was demanding, in addition to working on precise tactical plans, the team spent hours in the video analysis, but was paying off. Ousmane Dembélé had been transferred to the front center in December, and all the pieces began to fit around.
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Villa's Emery Backs 'Maduro' Martínez to handle the hostile psg crowd
Youri Tielemans from Aston Villa and Unai Emery are confident that the winning goalkeeper of the Argentine World Cup, Emi Martínez, can handle the donkeys of French fans in Paris.
On December 15, the 2018 World Cup winner began as No. 9 against Lyon in Paris. He had only scored once in the previous 11 games, but clicks for PSG that night. A goal for Dembélé, and a good victory continued three days later in As Monaco with two more goals for French. The Parisians never looked back after that and continued playing better and better.
The third phase of Luis Enrique's mandate in PSG has come since the change of the year, since 2025 has been exceptional. With Dembélé in front and the molded team around the collective effort, the results include the demolitions of Manchester City (4-2) and VFB Stuttgart (4-1) in the phase of the League of the Champions League, the 10-0 added 10-0 in the last 32, and huge victories in Ligue 1 on Brest (5-2), Monaco (4-1) and Lille (4-1).
It is a PSG team built in the image of Luis Enrique, one that works hard together, with great cohesion and in which each player is committed. Individual talent has done the rest.
Pacho has made the defense more solid. The center of the first -option field had interrogation signs around it in terms of physicality and size, but Vitinha, João Neves and Fabián Ruiz (undefeated in their last 50 league games with PSG) have shown that intelligence, movement and quality in the ball are more than adequate compensation. In the attack, the arrival of Kvicha Kvarathskhelia of Napoli in January has been a legitimate spark, with Dembélé (32 goals and 7 assists in all competitions), Barcola (18 and 15), Doué (11 and 11), Gonçalo Ramos (14 and 5), Kang-in Lee (6 and 5) and Kvara himself (3 and 4) all with the network.
Of course, the master class of the PSG season so far were the two games against Liverpool in the Champions League the last 16, in which they dismantled the best team in Europe until now: 4.41 expected goals (XG) compared to 1.86 in two games, with an advantage of 48-21 in the shots, on both legs. Collectively, the two performances are among the best of the season, all combined teams and competitions.
The PSG reached new heights at that time and has put the high bar for the rest of the season. With the title of the French League already insured, they will have to do it again against Villa this week. Luis Enrique has no doubt that his team will do it.
