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From ego-ridden team to complete package - why PSG pose ultimate test
From ego-ridden team to complete package - why PSG pose ultimate test
Luis Enrique's expertise at rebuilding a culture as well as a football team means Arsenal will confront the complete package when they meet Paris St-Germain in the Champions League final.
"Shoot us into the final" was the slogan emblazoned on a giant banner unfurled by Bayern Munich's fans in an electric atmosphere on Wednesday, as their side tried to overturn a 5-4 deficit from the classic first leg in Paris.
But it was PSG who obeyed the message, delivering a third-minute hammer blow when Georgian genius Khvicha Kvaratskhelia raced down the wing before setting up Ousmane Dembele to lash a finish high past Manuel Neuer.
Harry Kane's late equaliser on the night could not even be described as a consolation, coming only seconds from the end.
Moments later PSG were able to celebrate reaching a second successive final - and the chance to retain the crown they won so brilliantly by beating Inter Milan 5-0 last season.
Luis Enrique danced on the Allianz Arena turf, as he did after the 2025 final, with PSG delivering the latest compelling evidence they must be counted among the great sides of recent memory.
Arsenal will be confident in their first Champions League final for 20 years, but there is no escaping the fact they face a mammoth task on 30 May in Hungary.
And that is because Gunners boss Mikel Arteta must overcome a master strategist and inspirational footballing architect in his PSG counterpart Luis Enrique.
Their Spanish coach is the mastermind of this new PSG, built from the ashes of the superstar era which saw Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar the centrepieces of a dysfunctional, ego-ridden outfit who never resembled a team.
Luis Enrique, who also won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2015, ordered his players to park egos at the door - or jettisoned those who would not.
In their place is the perfect combination of brilliant individual skill bolted on to a savage work ethic and defensive solidity that will make them a formidable hurdle for Arsenal to overcome.
And the leader is Marquinhos.
The Brazil centre-half arrived at PSG from Roma in 2013, surviving Luis Enrique's cull of big names because the coach is wise enough to see a consummate professional and world-class defender when he sees one.
He has formed a superb partnership with the formidable Willian Pacho, who played a key role in keeping Kane under wraps until the England captain's strike in the dying seconds.
Kvaratskhelia and Dembele combined for the game's defining moment, while 20-year-old Desire Doue - the young face of the new PSG - tormented Vincent Kompany's side, coming close on several occasions in the second half.
And yet the glue that held it all together was Marquinhos, still peerless at 31, and with the uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time while exuding calm authority.
To complete the picture, PSG's midfield of Vitinha, Fabian Ruiz and Joao Neves is the well-oiled engine room linking it all together.
Ruiz's pass in the build-up to Dembele's goal was a thing of beauty - but he then reverted to doing the defensive dirty work Luis Enrique demands and which his team seems only too happy to deliver.
Whereas the PSG Luis Enrique inherited was a collection of broken parts, the pieces he has put in shape now fit neatly.
Ex-Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock told BBC Match Of The Day: "It is very difficult to look past PSG as winners in Budapest. They are so strong in every area. The only weakness I really see in the team is their goalkeeper Matvei Safonov.
One of the issues Arsenal will have is trying to contain the PSG full-backs. That means asking Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard, who will probably be on the wings, to then contain the full-backs and stick with them, and also go the other way and attack them as well.
Warnock added: "It is going to be very difficult for Arsenal to keep this PSG side out because you can't sit back against them for long periods of time.
"The one thing you'd say is that, if you sit off them, then Bradley Barcola, Doue and Kvaratskhelia are good enough in one-v-one situations, with Dembele as well, to be able to beat you individually.
Whichever way you look at them, they are a brilliant team and you struggle to find any weakness. You look right through the pitch and think 'where is the weakness?'
PSG demonstrated all their facets within the framework of this 6-5 two-leg win over Bayern - dazzling attacking play in the first leg, then well-drilled defending to keep the Bundesliga champions at bay when the battle was at its most intense.
They showed the same qualities against Liverpool in the quarter-final, winning at Anfield for the second successive season, digging deep into their defensive resources to secure a 4-0 aggregate win over England's reigning champions.
The Parisians' attitude was summed up by Dembele - an expensive misfit at Barcelona who has been fashioned into a Ballon d'Or winner by Luis Enrique - celebrating winning a tackle as wildly as he did his goal.
If any image summed up the transformation wrought by PSG's head coach, this was it.
And Luis Enrique's side did not have an easy ride in Munich. Far from it.
Bayern, roared forward by their magnificent support after a pre-match build-up worth of a rock concert, were relentless - albeit frustrated - opponents, who produced quality of their own.
Not for one moment did Kompany's side give up on somehow unsettling this magnificent PSG team. They just came up against superior operators.
Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, working as a TNT Sports pundit, said: "A couple of years ago they had prima donnas, egos in the team but [Luis Enrique] wasn't having it.
He pushed them aside and built a team on work-rate and principles. This team could dominate for years to come. They are that good.
Until the final whistle, PSG's players were running as hard as they did at the start. Every one of them. Any dangerous Bayern balls into the box found a barrier, and sometimes several, blocking the way.
This is what Arsenal and Arteta must find a way to navigate past in Budapest.
The Gunners' task, in its simplest terms, is to beat the team that are unquestionably the best in Europe.
Watch highlights of every Champions League game from 22:00 on Wednesday on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app.
There will also be a Champions League Match of the Day on BBC One on Wednesday, from 22:40 to 00:00.
Source: BBC
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