Match report: Champions League final
PSG crush Inter Milan to win first Champions League
PSG put five goals past Inter Milan to win the Champions League for the first time in club history. Here are the key moments, stats and takeaways.
Key moments:
12’ — GOAL: Désiré Doué squares the ball to Achraf Hakimi, who finishes off a lovely move to open the scoring against his former team.
20’ — GOAL: Doué’s deflected volley leaves Yann Sommer stranded to finish off a counterattack that started on PSG’s own endline.
44’ — Ousmane Dembélé gets onto a cross at the back post, but he can’t put his shot on target.
50’ — Khvicha Kvaratskhelia snatches at a shot from inside the six-yard box and fires it over the net.
53’ — Yann Bisseck and Nicola Zalewski replace Federico Dimarco and Benjamin Pavard.
56’ — Zalewski picks up a yellow card for his follow through on Fabián Ruiz.
62’ — Carlos Augusto and Matteo Darmian exit. The injured Bisseck and Henrikh Mkhitaryan come on.
63’ — GOAL: Doué finishes off another gorgeous passage of play and is booked for taking his shirt off.
66’ — Bradley Barcola takes the place of Doué.
69’ — Marcus Thuram is cautioned for his foul on Ruiz.
70’ — Barcola has an open net to aim at but blazes his shot over the bar.
71’ — Francesco Acerbi gets a yellow card for a late challenge.
73’ — GOAL: Dembélé sends Kvaratskhelia through, and he beats Sommer at the near post.
78’ — Lucas Hernández comes on for Nuno Mendes.
81’ — Barcola sits Acerbi down and somehow puts his shot from point-blank range wide.
84’ — PSG make a triple substitution, bringing on Senny Mayulu, Gonçalo Ramos, Warren Zaïre-Emery in place of Kvaratskhelia, João Neves and Ruiz.
86’ — GOAL: Mayulu joins the party with a difficult finish from an tight angle.
90’ — Hakimi’s tactical foul earns him a yellow card.
90+1’ — The final whistle blows.
Stats of note:
PSG are the first French club to win the Champions League since Marseille in 1993. Six countries had won the competition more recently than France.
PSG join Manchester City and Real Madrid as the only clubs to play in multiple Champions League finals and win the competition at least once this decade.
The five-goal victory is the largest margin of victory ever in a European Cup final.
PSG are the 10th club and 11th team to complete the treble. The last to do so was Manchester City in 2022-23.
The seven most-used players in the tournament all come from the same club: PSG. Willian Pacho logged the most minutes of any player with 1,542.
Player of the game: Désiré Doué
Doué was the most dangerous player on the field even before his run set up the opening goal. Then he went and scored twice. He did it all at 19 years old while being the first PSG player to get subbed off. Everyone was outstanding for PSG, but it was the biggest question mark in Luis Enrique’s starting lineup who stole the show.
The takeaways:
1. Inter Milan simply couldn’t keep up
There’s only so much teams can do to prepare for PSG’s energetic pressing and fluid attack. The striker drops into the midfield. The right back is chasing down the ball on the left wing. The right winger is running to the left side of the 6-yard box. Just completing a pass is a challenge against them. By the time Inter restored some sense of order, they were 2-0 down with the game approaching halftime. PSG’s youthfulness was not a vulnerability at all. It was the main reason why they are champions of Europe.
2. Midfields matter … a lot
Neves, Ruiz and Vitinha have only combined for 38 goal contributions across all competitions for a team that averaged 2.71 goals per game in Ligue 1. What made them the best midfield in the world this season was the stuff that can’t be quantified. It’s the ground they cover. It’s the intensity of their press. It’s their ability to operate in tight spaces. All of it was on full display in this game. Between their brilliance and the impact of Rodri’s injury, this season was a perfect demonstration of why elite holding or two-way midfielders are every bit as valuable as a world-class goalscorer.
3. The best team in the world won the biggest prize
PSG won every competition they entered and didn’t allow a goal in the three finals they played. They won Ligue 1 by 19 points. They eliminated the Premier League champions, the Premier League runners-up and the Serie A runners-up from the Champions League. The four-game winless run early in the Champions League is the only blemish on their record, and a brutal league phase schedule probably had something to do with that. Those games are a distant memory now.