Paris Saint-Germain won their first Champions League
MUNICH — Paris Saint-Germain won their first Champions League title by humiliating Inter Milan with a rampant 5-0 victory on Saturday.
PSG completed a league, cup and Champions League treble on a night when 19-year-old forward Désiré Doué announced himself to the world with a two-goal performance.
Achraf Hakimi’s 12th-minute opener set PSG on their way before Doue’s double and goals from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Senny Mayulu completed the most lopsided winning margin in Champions League final history. And the flip side for Inter, who lost a second final in three seasons, is that they are now the team that suffered the biggest defeat in this showpiece game.
The Paris centre-forward did an outstanding job leading the press, as reflected by the graphic above which shows him ranked first among the Paris players for pressing actions in the final third with 14 – four more than the second-ranked Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
“We saw a group of players working as a team, understanding the game and interchanging positions,” explained Rafa Benítez. “They were dynamic, rotating with real quality – they receive the ball, go up against defenders, and play in between.”
Luis Enrique said after the match: “How Ousmane Dembélé defended in this final is how you lead a team.”
The Paris centre-forward did an outstanding job leading the press, as reflected by the graphic above which shows him ranked first among the Paris players for pressing actions in the final third with 14 – four more than the second-ranked Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
According to Avram Grant, this collective effort to press with such unceasing intensity sent an important message that “if you are not working as a team, you will not win titles.” Dembélé set the tone at the top of the pitch, with his team-mates swift to follow, as displayed in the first clip in the video above in which the striker eventually closes down Yann Sommer, forcing the goalkeeper into a long pass which goes to Nuno Mendes. “We had difficulties to build up,” said the Inter goalkeeper, “but we have to say they [had] good pressure.”
In the second clip Dembélé is seen closing down Alessandro Bastoni and then Francesco Acerbi in turn, and we see the whole Paris team pushing high into the Inter half. “When Dembélé goes to the goalkeeper, the team as a whole are always making ground behind him as well, and that helped them keep the game compact,” said Michael O’Neill.
To return to Dembélé, Luis Enrique said he “ran for three players” while, among the UEFA Technical Observers, Roy Hodgson highlighted the sheer speed involved: “Forwards will do that, but to do it at that speed and then get back again is very impressive.” This is underlined by the graphic below which shows that he ended the game with the most sprints (63) of any Paris player. Again, Hakimi is ranked high – second with 47, just one ahead of Kvaratskhelia.
The mentality of the Paris team stood out too on Saturday night. Here was a group of players mirroring the intensity of their coach, as is showcased in the second video below, which presents a passage of play in which they lose the ball several times but react well at each point – with a regain from João Neves, a duel won by Willian Pacho, and another piece of high-speed pressing by Dembélé.
Inter coach Simone Inzaghi observed that Paris were first to all the second balls and summing up their mentality, Rui Faria described the champions as “humble off the ball and arrogant with the ball”. He elaborated: “On transitions, they are strong when they lose the ball, recovering the ball well. They’re all there ready to defend.”
The other outstanding theme of Paris’ performance was their fluidity – that constant rotation of positions which has caused their opponents problems throughout the season.
The first clip above begins with an example of the movement of the Paris forwards and midfielders when pressing, before we then see Paris build the play with Vitinha dropping to join the centre-backs to give them a 3v2 against the Inter forwards. We see also here an illustration of Sir Gareth Southgate’s observation about their ability to “exploit the space at the side of the midfield three”.
The second clip is notable for several details, starting with how Vitinha, nominally the holding midfielder, drives forward like an attacking midfielder – another example of his side’s mobility. “Although Vitinha is normally the deeper one, he doesn’t just play as a six,” said Southgate. “All the midfield players can receive under pressure and turn and they can play – they can be a ten, they can be an eight, they can be a six.”
It is also significant how Dembélé drops deep into his own half, connecting with Vitinha in the one-two from which the Portuguese springs into Inter territory. Dembélé had performed a similar role in the round of 16 victory at Liverpool and Rui Faria saw a reluctance, particularly in the first period, on the part of the Inter centre-backs to follow Dembélé – a factor in Paris achieving a numerical superiority in the middle of the pitch.
“The Inter midfielders needed to deal with the three midfielders of Paris-Saint Germain and then Dembélé coming deep and one of the full-backs coming up too,” said Grant, while Frank de Boer observed them overloading specific areas – “you saw them on one side with all midfielders and Nuno Mendes or Hakimi” – and this is certainly evident in clip one above.
Kris Van Der Haegen, Coach education director at Belgian FA: “You need to have the right mentality to do this. The individual is hugely important but football is still a team sport and everybody needs to play his part. As a coach you can train your players so they’re physically ready to do this, but the mentality depends on the individual.
“We educate players in this from a young age as part of our development philosophy. We play high press all the time. We say, ‘Guys, we want to make you ready to play the most difficult football’ and that means playing really high and being ready at the back to play 1v1 to deal with that space. This way we try to develop not only the mentality to press, but also players who will be the very best in decision-making on the defensive side, regarding positioning and 1v1s.
