How PSG moved on from Mbappé, Messi and Neymar -- but got better

The transformation of Paris Saint-Germain, between the first half and the second half of the season, has been nothing short of spectacular.

Seemingly overnight, the French giants bloomed from a team stuttering in Europe and being heavily criticized to being the best side in 2025, the most entertaining one alongside Barcelona -- "The best team I have faced in the last three years," according to Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk -- and playing football the right way with intensity, creativity and skill. It's been a breath of fresh air as they've cruised into the UEFA Champions League final (against Inter Milan) after several big wins in the knockout stages.

So how did they do it? How did a team once known for its egos and individual superstars -- such as Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi and Neymar -- transition into the most unselfish and structured squad Paris has ever known? ESPN's Julien Laurens and Mark Ogden dig in ahead of Saturday's showpiece game in Munich.

How PSG reached the Champions League final

PSG set their course for the Champions League final on Jan. 22. To be exact, the turning point of their season came at 10:15 p.m. local time on a rain-lashed Paris evening.

It all seems so different now, with PSG perhaps just 90 minutes away from their first Champions League title, but the French champions were down and out as they trailed Manchester City 2-0 at the Parc des Princes after goals from Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland in the first 10 minutes of the second half.

Luis Enrique's team had won two and lost three of their first six games in the Champions League group phase. A defeat against City would have seen them drop out of the top 24 and go into the final game, away to Stuttgart, relying on other results for them to qualify for the knockout stage. But Ousmane Dembélé's 56th-minute goal against City gave PSG hope, and it proved to be the catalyst for a remarkable comeback win. PSG won 4-2, and the team would win 4-1 in Stuttgart, helped by a Dembélé hat trick, to roar into the knockout round.

The turnaround against City was key, and it transformed PSG's belief and performances.

"If we were to analyze everything that has happened in the Champions League this season, I think it would make a great thriller or horror film because it has had a bit of everything," Luis Enrique said. "I think that match against Manchester City changed something around us because of the way we won that match. That was the turning point, because we were losing 2-0."

The win against City also sparked a run of big wins against Premier League teams. After cruising past Ligue 1 rivals Brest in the playoff round, PSG eliminated Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal to make it to the final -- an achievement not lost on Luis Enrique due to Ligue 1 often being mocked as a weak league by English commentators.

"The league of farmers, no? We are the league of farmers," Luis Enrique said. "But it's nice. We are enjoying the result and the compliments of everybody speaking of our team."

After PSG eliminated Liverpool in the round of 16 following a penalty shootout at Anfield, Reds' manager Arne Slot described it as "the best game of football I have ever been involved in." Slot also called PSG the best team in Europe.

"All of the underlying stats show you that they were the best team in Europe until now," Slot said. "Luis Enrique made an incredible team here after three [transfer] windows. So much pace, so much work rate, so much quality in the midfield, how they handle the ball." -- Ogden

PSG's evolution, from go-kart to F1

We don't know whether "Forrest Gump" is one of Luis Enrique's favorite movies, but he's definitely applying the credo of Tom Hanks' character ("run, Forrest, run!") to his PSG team. When you look at all the metrics this season, in comparison to recent ones, some are more telling than others. The main one: This season in the Champions League, PSG players ran 117.94 kilometers (73 miles) per game on average, far more than anyone else. Last season, when they reached the semifinals, they averaged 10 kilometers less per game.

Luis Enrique has changed a lot of things since last season, but his biggest achievement is to have made this team a proper team. "I want them to all attack together and all defend together, to not allow the opposition any time on the ball so we can hassle them and recover the ball as quickly as possible," he said.

This season, PSG are pretty much kings on paper as well as on the pitch. They are the team that have attacked the most this season, with the most successful dribbles, the best pressing and counter pressing (seeing that they have the most balls recovered). They've created the most chances and made the most passes and shots in the entire Champions League. In 2025, they have looked unplayable at times, almost unbeatable. But it has not always been like this; PSG had only one win in their first five games of the Champions League's new league phase.

play

2:19

Can PSG be inspired by the Munich UCL final good luck charm?

Julien Laurens and Mark Ogden discuss what PSG will need to do to beat Inter Milan in the Champions League final.

"We were always confident in our ability and that it would click one day, even when we were not winning," PSG midfielder Vitinha said last week. !The turnaround happened against Manchester City in January, when we were 2-0 down and we came back to win 4-2. Everything we worked on since August clicked then, with the ball in our movement, transitions and switches, and without the ball in our pressing and counter pressing."

This PSG team is a big jigsaw puzzle, with Luis Enrique seeing all the pieces but needing to find the right fit.

Take Ousmane Dembélé, who played as a center forward 10 years ago at Rennes. When the PSG coach moved him there again from the right wing, it changed everything. Having Vitinha as the holding midfielder, serving as a deep-lying playmaker who could control the tempo and PSG's buildup play, was perfect. Giving Achraf Hakimi the freedom to come infield in possession, becoming another midfielder while still having the whole right side to make runs forward, was another thing that helped unlock this side's potential.

"[Luis Enrique] knew after the departure of Mbappé that he had a lot of work to make this team play as a team," a source told ESPN. "So he had a few axes of work, and would only move to the next one once he had taught one to the players.

"They started with the pressing. Once they had mastered that, it was the counter pressing. Then Hakimi's position, and then Nuno Mendes' position as left back: [He would function as] half a third center back in possession, half a No. 8 in the left half-space. Then Dembélé's position change ... He did this until they were exactly the team he wanted them to be."

The €60 million arrival of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in January from Napoli brought even more strength to this team. PSG won against City without him, but the winger quickly became indispensable with his directness, pace and close control complementing Désiré Doué and Bradley Barcola in the attacking third. Luis Enrique had all the tools, then, to make this team successful. -- Laurens

What's next, and what does PSG's rise mean for the rest of Europe?

PSG are arguably the biggest club to have never won the Champions League. It's a debate they can probably have with Arsenal and Atlético Madrid, but winning the competition for the first time on Saturday would take them out of that quiz question.

Thomas Tuchel's PSG team went close in 2020 before losing against Bayern Munich in the final in Lisbon, a match without fans present due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so this feels like the club's first real attempt at claiming the ultimate prize.

Win or lose, it is clear that PSG's decision to change course by abandoning their superstar recruitment policy has paid off, and they will be a force to be reckoned with in the years ahead. A defeat against Inter on Saturday would undoubtedly hurt, but there is an inescapable sense that PSG are at the start of something with this team, rather than being a group of stars reaching the unfulfilling culmination of an expensive project.

One prominent sporting director at a major European club told ESPN that PSG are now viewed differently by their peers and are no longer regarded as a dumping ground for players who sides are keen to offload for a big fee. The view within the game was that PSG could always be relied upon to provide a lucrative exit route for unwanted players -- sources have said Manchester United spent at least two summers hoping PSG would make a move for Marcus Rashford -- but that has changed dramatically.

play

0:58

Dembélé wary of Inter experience ahead of UCL final

PSG attacker Ousmane Dembélé says his team is "hungry to win" ahead of the Champions League final vs. Inter Milan.

"PSG made a conscious decision a couple of years to change their approach," the sporting director said. "The club felt that they weren't connected to Paris and the 'ultras' in their fan base -- even Lionel Messi was booed by them for not playing well enough -- so they decided to spend big on young players instead.

"We were told that they wanted to dominate the French market for the best young talent and also target youngsters on a global scale, and that's what they have done, but it helps when you have huge financial resources and a world-class coach.

"PSG have done well, but they still make mistakes. They spent €75m to sign Randal Kolo Muani and €60m on Manuel Ugarte two years ago, and both were big failures. But overall, PSG have turned themselves around very successfully."

Despite their change of strategy, PSG are still a threat to Europe's biggest clubs in the transfer market. Liverpool were keen to sign Kvaratskhelia in January, but PSG moved quickly, with the Georgia winger a crucial addition to the squad.

Whether PSG win the Champions League or not, they will have the finances and ambition to compete for the best players in the summer. Ligue 1 might be the negative element for potential signings, but if PSG conquer Europe, they will be a tough team for any player to turn down. -- Ogden

Luis Enrique, the architect

The former Barcelona manager was very clear when he took the job in summer 2023. Had his front three been Messi, Mbappé and Neymar, he would not have joined the club, but the Argentine had left already (for Major League Soccer's Inter Miami), and Luis Enrique got the green light to move Neymar on to Saudi Arabia, despite having worked with him (and Messi) to great success in Catalonia in 2015.

The "big three" together? Impossible.

"You can't have a team with a front three like that in today's football. It doesn't work," Luis Enrique said in the meeting with PSG executives before accepting the role, according to an ESPN source. The manager is experienced and savvy enough to know that if you don't attack with 11 players and defend with 11 players, you won't achieve anything.

play

2:04

Laurens: Enrique doesn't get enough credit

Julien Lauren praises Luis Enrique's impact on PSG and reveals details of his training sessions.

Before Luis Enrique's arrival, PSG with the big three were a team divided in two; eight players on one side, three on the other. Luis Enrique inherited only one of them, ultimately, in Mbappé. He thought he could make it work and felt he could convince the Paris-born prodigy to be more of a team player. He had numerous individual meetings with him, showing him what he expected from him with -- and especially without -- the ball.

"I read that you love basketball," was the start of Luis Enrique's pitch, according to a source familiar with the meetings. "You are a big fan of Michael Jordan? Well, Jordan used to grab his teammates by the b---- and he would defend like a son of a b----. You have to set the example, as a person and a player.

"You think that all you have to do is scoring goals. Sure, you are a phenomenon, a world-class player, no doubt. But for me, it is not enough. A real leader is someone who if you can't help us with your goals, you help us with the defensive work as well."

This is the crux of Luis Enrique's philosophy, something defender Lucas Hernández spoke to ESPN about on Wednesday when asked about his coach's style. "If you don't do what he asks for on the pitch, you don't play. And because we all want to play then we all do exactly what he says."

PSG used to be a team that was run and effectively managed by its star players. If the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic (PSG star, 2012-2016) didn't want to do something, he was not doing it -- the same went for Neymar, Messi, Mbappé and others. The players always felt like they were above the coaches, and any disconnect between any manager (whether Laurent Blanc, Thomas Tuchel, Unai Emery, Mauricio Pochettino or Christophe Galtier) and the dressing room became too much of a problem.

It is different with Luis Enrique. Not only is he the boss, but the players follow suit. He can be very stubborn -- building this team in his image, according to his principles of movement, fluidity, structure and work ethic -- although back in November when things where not happening for the Parisians, he listened to the players' opinions. They thought he was a bit too rigid in his positional play, sources told ESPN, and he agreed to allow more freedom to his players on the pitch as long as the structure of the team remained the same.

On Wednesday, at the new and ultra-modern PSG training ground, Luis Enrique went up on his little crane to watch the 11 vs. 11 match next to Joaquin Valdes, the team's psychologist and trusted assistant, like he always does. He stopped the game, came down from the crane, gave his instructions and went back up again.

"There is no better view than up there. If I could watch our matches like this, I would," he told ESPN last week.

Luis Enrique is quite special -- "a genius," said Hakimi -- and very extreme and passionate about everything he does. His main advice to you when you meet him: "Don't stay more than 30 minutes without doing some sort of exercise. You should do 10 press-ups every 30 minutes."

That's Luis Enrique's gospel. But you don't have to listen to him -- just his players. -- Laurens

Where will PSG go from here?

This is Year 1 of the Luis Enrique project, post the trio of superstars. In many respects, and regardless of what happens Saturday night, Paris are ahead of schedule. The objective was to be in contention to win the Champions League in Year 2, more likely Year 3 -- certainly not Year 1. The idea to keep this young squad, the youngest in the Champions League, and improving it, individually and collectively so it can grow together and get better.

With regard to this strategy, and no matter what happens in Munich this Saturday, the summer transfer window should be a quiet one for PSG with only a couple of players added -- namely a right-footed center back who can also play right back, and a midfielder -- while some fringe players (like defender Milan Skriniar and forwards Kolo Muani, Marco Asensio and Carlos Soler) could leave.

Stability and continuity are very much the motto here: Whether they win on Saturday or not, this project is just getting started. -- Laurens