Paris Saint-Germain focuses on history in the Allianz Arena on Saturday: the chance to win their very first Champions League title, a wish that has become an obsession for Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) over the years, and the opportunity to claim their first Treble. If the club from the capital can reach the perfect season, it is up to their collective culture instead of concentrating on individuals.
Ligue 1, Coupe de France and Trophy des Champions: a domestic treble that is standard for Paris Saint-Germain over different seasons. If they don't win all three trophies, the criticism of management starts.
However, the 2024/25 season has been a special. PSG has qualified for their second Champions League final in the five -year space and can be set to win the first 'real' Treble in their history.
The success of PSG is particularly due to two men: Luis Enrique, the coach who made a team of champions, and Luis Campos, the new sports consultant of the QSI Group.
Campos' influence behind the scenes
Sports advisor Campos, the architect of PSG's new look approach, had his deal extended on Thursday to 2030. The signing confirms the new focus of the club on team spirit instead of superstars, while it is preparing for another Champions League final against Inter.
An extension of five years for a sports director or adviser is unusual for clubs, which usually prefer a little more in the short term. But this expansion is a way to reward policy change in 2023 with the arrival of Coach Enrique: an end to the 'stars, glitter and glamor' policy in favor of team culture and togetherness.
Campos had a huge influence on the revision of the team, which had become necessary after repeated failures in the Champions League. When he arrived in 2022, the Portuguese adviser had to deal with the end of the Messi-Tneymar-Mbappe era for the first time. At the same time, he launched a new dynamic: add a large number of promising young people to a handful of experienced players.
The idea for PSG was to “make their own stars”, in the words of Coach Enrique. Campos, for his part, wanted players to come to the club for PSG and not for Paris. It is in mind that players such as Joao Neves have arrived through the doors.
The relationship of trust between Campos and Enrique has been one of the pillars of the revival of PSG. In his various press conferences, the Spaniard has insisted that he wants to continue the journey next to Campos.
But how does Campos view his work daily? He explains to the students of Sorbonne University in November 2023, said: “I am almost 60, I have been in professional football for 18 years and it is an idea that I fight every day: a team is a puzzle with 22 or 24 pieces.
“The idea is simple: there is a backbone of at least one player in every position, plus young players with the potential to get ahead. Finally, one quality is essential for every player: intelligence.”
Enrique's coaching philosophy
For many years, PSG has been criticized because of the way their team has behaved – with some justification. And more in general, the club of QSI has had a bad reputation. Exaggerated individualistic, stingy in their efforts, poorly behaved on and next to the field, the Parisians have never had the strongest team culture.
And yet, from Carlo Ancelotti to Christophe Galtier, the coaches of PSG have tried to implement systems that choose the collective above the individual. However, this has only worked at intervals. We think in particular of the Laurent Blanc team in the 2015/16 season, Unai Emery's in 2016/17, Thomas Tuchel's between 2018 and 2020 and Mauricio Pochettinos in 2021/22.
Every time certain personalities took over. However, the reality was more complex than that, and the Paris dressing room never gave the impression of playing as one. After several failures in the Champions League, management started a new cycle with the departure of Lionel Messi and Neymar in the summer of 2023.
It coincided with the arrival of Enrique – known as a technical and human demanding coach – who was brought in to try a more radical approach than its predecessors. No more concessions, the Paris team had to follow the instructions of a technician who had come to bring a very specific feature philosophy: positional game. Since then, PSG has never looked so coherent or successful.
Dembele hunts Ballon d'Or
The results so far: two consecutive domestic triple for PSG, with a run to the semi -final and then the final in Europe. This season they dominated Ligue 1 and fell to their first defeat of the campaign before the semi-final of Arsenal against Nice.
The club from the capital wanted to do what could not have done any other European side in the five major competitions: concluding the season undefeated. Unfortunately it will not happen this time, but perhaps the end result is worth it if they cancel their Maiden Champions League trophy.
If there is an area where PSG died a corner this year, this is the mental side of things. Before their decisive match against Manchester City in January, who could have eliminate them if they had lost, the Parisians had lost to Arsenal, Bayern and Atletico Madrid in the competition phase of the competition.
PSG played good football, with a clear identity, but the ball did not go into the net. Enrique and his players, however, refused to give up and waited for that famous click that would enable them to find their groove in Anfield, Villa Park and the Emirates.
One of the players who typifies this revival best is none other than Ousmane Dembele. After he had been omitted from the team for the game against the Gunners in October, the Frenchman rediscovered his spark and trust a few months later and the Talisman PSG was so desperately needed.
Back-to-back hat tricks against Stuttgart and Brest have rolled the ball, and he has never looked back since then, with 33 goals and 13 assists in all matches before the meeting of Saturday with Inter.
Dembele is the symbol of an exceptional, coherent team and as a result is one of the favorites to win the prestigious Ballon d'Or prize.