Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the lauded Georgian winger who cut his teeth in Italy with Napoli, scored PSG’s fourth in the 73rd minute to cap off a raucous, record-setting night for the team.
PSG’s road to European glory has been anything but traditional. Despite its home in one of Europe’s most iconic cities, PSG is a new venture; it was created through a two-club merger in 1970 and is the youngest top-level soccer team in France by quite some distance. The team struggled to find its footing and won just two national titles in its first four decades of existence. By 2009, PSG was floundering; by 2010, however, the arrival of large-scale international wealth changed it forever. The club was acquired by Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), a sovereign wealth fund run by its wealthy Middle Eastern nation, and became one of the richest clubs in world soccer virtually overnight.
QSI’s initial strategy—hire the best players on earth and fire any coach that can’t make them happy—paid little dividends. PSG cycled through players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, coaches like Thomas Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino and Christophe Galtier, and came away from all of it with zero European trophies to its name. Fans lamented the team’s money-throwing approach and held it up as an example of everything that was wrong with modern soccer.
Over the diva attitudes of its underperforming stars and desperate for consistency, PSG changed its approach. It hired Spanish coach Luis Enrique, a Barcelona man known for his youth development skills, and entrusted him with a lineup of talented teenagers.
What followed was a revelation. PSG stopped buying superstars and started creating them instead. The team got organized, and crucially, it got likable, too. Neutral soccer fans around the globe were taken by PSG’s fast, athletic soccer and Enrique’s teen-friendly approach, and they flocked to the team in droves.
Ten years ago, seeing PSG win the Champions League would’ve been an eye-rolling disappointment, an all-too-obvious arc for the richest club in the world. Today, seeing it win is an emotional thrill. That’s how complete PSG’s rebuild has been under Enrique, how lovable he’s made this team: lovable enough to make people forget about the ugly sovereign wealth experiment that made it possible.
Despite its context and controversy, though, Enrique’s PSG earned this title fair and square. It grew from strength to strength this season and battled some of Europe’s finest teams on its way to the trophy.
“I have an exceptional squad,” Enrique said, “and they have always seen the glass as half-full.”
