Late Bayern pressure not enough as PSG return to Champions League final
By Phil McNulty, Chief football writer
Luis Enrique’s expertise at rebuilding a culture as well as a football team means Arsenal will confront the complete package when they meet Paris St-Germain in the Champions League final.
“Shoot us into the final” was the slogan emblazoned on a giant banner unfurled by Bayern Munich’s fans in an electric atmosphere on Wednesday, as their side tried to overturn a 5-4 deficit from the classic first leg in Paris. But it was PSG who obeyed the message, delivering a third-minute hammer blow when Georgian genius Khvicha Kvaratskhelia raced down the wing before setting up Ousmane Dembele to lash a finish high past Manuel Neuer. Harry Kane’s late equaliser on the night could not even be described as a consolation, coming only seconds from the end.
Moments later PSG were able to celebrate reaching a second successive final – and the chance to retain the crown they won so brilliantly by beating Inter Milan 5-0 last season. Luis Enrique danced on the Allianz Arena turf, as he did after the 2025 final, with PSG delivering the latest compelling evidence they must be counted among the great sides of recent memory.
Arsenal will be confident in their first Champions League final for 20 years, but there is no escaping the fact they face a mammoth task on 30 May in Hungary. And that is because Gunners boss Mikel Arteta must overcome a master strategist and inspirational footballing architect in his PSG counterpart Luis Enrique.
‘Mastermind who built PSG from ashes of superstars era’
[Image: Paris Saint-Germain manager Luis Enrique celebrates after his side reached the 2026 Champions League final. Image source: Getty Images. Image caption: Luis Enrique became Paris St-Germain manager in the summer of 2023]
Their Spanish coach is the mastermind of this new PSG, built from the ashes of the superstar era which saw Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar the centrepieces of a dysfunctional, ego-ridden outfit who never resembled a team. Luis Enrique, who also won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2015, ordered his players to park egos at the door – or jettisoned those who would not.
In their place is the perfect combination of brilliant individual skill bolted on to a savage work ethic and defensive solidity that will make them a formidable hurdle for Arsenal to overcome. And the leader is Marquinhos. The Brazil centre-half arrived at PSG from Roma in 2013, surviving Luis Enrique’s cull of big names because the coach is wise enough to see a consummate professional and world-class defender when he sees one. He has formed a superb partnership with the formidable Willian Pacho, who played a key role in keeping Kane under wraps until the England captain’s strike in the dying seconds.
Kvaratskhelia and Dembele combined for the game’s defining moment, while 20-year-old Desire Doue – the young face of the new PSG – tormented Vincent Kompany’s side, coming close on several occasions in the second half. And yet the glue that held it all together was Marquinhos, still peerless at 31, and with the uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time while exuding calm authority.
To complete the picture, PSG’s midfield of Vitinha, Fabian Ruiz and Joao Neves is the well-oiled engine room linking it all together. Ruiz’s pass in the build-up to Dembele’s goal was a thing of beauty – but he then reverted to doing the defensive dirty work Luis Enrique demands and which his team seems only too happy to deliver.
The tactical fluidity that makes PSG so impressive (Published 28 April)
An obsessive who lived through tragedy – can Luis Enrique deliver PSG dream? (Published 9 April 2025)
Whereas the PSG Luis Enrique inherited was a collection of broken parts, the pieces he has put in shape now fit neatly. Ex-Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock told BBC Match Of The Day: “It is very difficult to look past PSG as winners in …”
