For a little over a decade, Paris Saint-Germain was a controversial project and a collection of names. It was Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Beckham, then Neymar, Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi. It was a club transformed by money, and defined by unflinching ambition. It was many things, but never the one thing it desperately wanted to be — until Saturday, when PSG, in its very first year without a megastar, became European champions.
PSG stormed past Inter Milan in the 2025 Champions League final. It won 5-0, by more goals than any Champions League finalist ever before. It won as a team, with four goals scored or assisted by teenagers — including breakout 19-year-old star Désiré Doué.
It pressed, and possessed the ball, and unlocked Inter in the 12th minute with a gorgeous team goal.
Eight minutes later, Ousmane Dembélé and Doué sped up the field and landed a killer blow on the counterattack.
But it was the third goal, in the 63rd minute, that confirmed PSG’s supremacy, and floored Inter, and wowed hundreds of millions of viewers around the world.
DembĂ©lĂ© rolled a blind, clever ball into the path of Vitinha; Vitinha, PSG’s midfield maestro, teed up DouĂ©; and DouĂ©, a teen signed last summer in part to replace MbappĂ©, finished the job. He became the first man — or boy — to contribute three goals or assists in a Champions League final.
A fourth goal 10 minutes later, scored by Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, set off crazed celebrations at the Allianz Arena in Munich.
And a fifth, scored by 19-year-old sub Senny Mayulu, triggered joyous tears on PSG’s bench, then a party in Paris.
This, at the pinnacle of soccer, is where PSG’s Qatari owners envisioned the club when they bought it back in 2011. It’s where they tried to take it with billions of dollars, much of it spent on established superstars. They brought in Ibrahimović and Thiago Silva, Lucas Moura and Marco Verratti. Edinson Cavani, David Luiz, Angel Di Maria, Neymar, Messi and MbappĂ© eventually followed. Every single one of them arrived accompanied by untold hype and astronomical expectations.
And every single one left without the prize they came to win, the Champions League.
The first wave of stars lost in the quarterfinals, again and again and again. The second reached the final in 2020, but fell short, then regressed to Round of 16 flameouts.
So, in 2023 and 2024, the superteam disassembled. Neymar went to Saudi Arabia, and Messi to Miami, and Mbappé to Real Madrid.
And that, at last, is when PSG decided to construct a team rather than a collection of names.
It spent nearly $800 million over two years, more than any other club in world soccer. But it didn’t spend on established stars; instead, it spent on DembĂ©lĂ© and DouĂ©, 20-year-old Bradley Barcola and 19-year-old JoĂŁo Neves, and 22-year-old Willian Pacho.
It spent on a brilliant coach, Luis Enrique, who empowered Achraf Hakimi, Fabian Ruiz and Vitinha; and stood by Gianluigi Donnarumma through years of criticism; and leant on Marquinhos, the lone holdover from the early 2010s.
And on Saturday, May 31, 2025, one by one, beneath fluttering confetti, they all lifted PSG’s first Champions League trophy.
For the first time in history…
Paris Saint-Germain 🏆#UCLfinal pic.twitter.com/hWm5y7Hrk4
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) May 31, 2025
