PSG have taken the long road to Champions League glory – with humiliations by Manchester United and Newcastle – but Luis Enrique has ended their ‘obsession’.The Champions League is not at all an obsession – that is over. I said that at the first press conference with Luis Enrique,” said PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi with all the conviction of a man whose sportswashing had shrunk under the pressure of one too many loads.
“We are building a new identity; our own style, our own principles of how to play, an offensive play, and a new culture. That’s what we want, and then the results will follow.
“We are building a team that is really playing as a team. We want our players to enjoy playing, our staff to enjoy coaching, and for our fans to enjoy it when you watch.”Ten days later, PSG were beaten 4-1 at St James’ Park. The players, staff and fans cannot have particularly enjoyed watching Miguel Almiron, Dan Burn, Sean Longstaff and Fabian Schar score against Europe’s perennial underachievers – although the schadenfreude was irresistible for neutrals.
It has been a long, arduous and often absurd journey to the summit. PSG have avoided the ultimate ignominy of exiting at the group stage ever since this odyssey began, but the trade-off for that has been a preposterous propensity to stumble at all manner of other hurdles: consecutive away-goal eliminations by Barcelona and Chelsea; victims of La Remontada; a humiliation so thorough it forced Manchester United to make Ole Gunnar Solskjaer their manager for more than two years; being entirely and utterly Karim Benzema’d in the Bernabeu.
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