After coming close in the 2020 final, as well as plenty of other knockout exits over the last decade and a half, Paris Saint-Germain finally won the club's first Champions League trophy, thanks to a 5-0 stomp of Internazionale that, somehow, wasn't even as close as that record scoreline—the biggest in a Champions League final ever—would suggest. On a Saturday night in Munich, PSG shed off its demons, sure, but it also demonstrated what had been clear once it got over a rather desperate start to the Champions League: The French league and cup winners were the best team in Europe this season, the most dominant force en route to its long-awaited glory.
From the opening whistle, this was about as one-way as traffic gets in a major soccer match. Finals are usually tense affairs, but that's only true when there is fear on both sides. Inter started with a high line but quickly reverted into its customary packed box defending, perhaps a nod of respect towards PSG's attack or just the continuation of its own identity. Regardless, PSG was in fact fearless in attacking that defense, which had been exposed rather badly by the individual brilliance of Barcelona's own attack in the semifinal. Inter survived that round, and it deserved to, but against a team that actually defends and suffocates counter-attacks with its pressing from everyone including its forwards (Ousmane Dembélé was especially ruthless in defense on Saturday), the Italian runner-ups had to buckle down and try to defend for the majority of the 90 minutes. That did not work.
Everyone on PSG played exceedingly well over 90 minutes on Saturday, but Inter especially had no answers for two players, and it's fitting that Vitinha and Désiré Doué combined to set up the first goal in the 12th minute. Vitinha received the ball outside the box on the left side of PSG's attack and spotted a diagonal run away from the goal from Doué, hitting a perfect pass through the Inter defensive line. Doué, who has quickly become one of the best young players on the planet, deployed the gentlest of first touches while spinning counter his momentum, ending up facing the goal and, more crucially, noticing that Achraf Hakimi was completely open in front of it, as Inter left back Federico Dimarco completely lost his mark. An easy cutback from Doué followed, and Hakimi made it 1-0. Perhaps no one except PSG knew it then, but the game was already over.
Dimarco would go on to have himself a nightmare of a first half, constantly losing track of PSG's front three and their intelligent movement around the area, and even when he made the right call, he was punished for it. In the 20th minute, Ousmane Dembélé—PSG's best player of the season and if not the favorite for the Balon d'Or, then at least a top contender—had the ball in that same left flank and spotted that Dimarco was left to cover three PSG players in the box by himself. Dembélé went far with his choice of pass, lobbing one across to Doué, who had the most space. The 19-year-old brought the ball down into a hop and then steadied himself to volley a shot toward goal, a shot that hit the unfortunate leg of Dimarco and deflected in for 2-0.
That's where it stood at halftime, and to Inter's credit, it came out more awake in the second half, actually pushing into PSG's attacking third, but with no luck on the scoreboard. For about 20 minutes, it looked possible that Inter could try to work some of the same magic it did in the semis, but again it was Vitinha and Doué who definitively knifed a dagger into Inter's defense, all but clinching the trophy with half an hour left to go. In the 63rd minute, the Portuguese midfielder grabbed the ball just outside his own penalty area and turned on the jets. After a quick give-and-go with Dembélé, who hit a lovely little backheel back into his teammate's path, Vitinha sprinted just far enough to allow Doué to get separation from Alessandro Bastoni, and Vitinha's through ball was once again perfect. He set up Doué for a near post shot so perfectly paced that at first I thought he had missed just wide.
About nine minutes later, mid-season transfer Khvicha Kvaratskhelia broke away on a counter-attack, aided by a perfectly timed run to keep himself onside, and scored the fourth, while substitute Senny Mayulu, another 19-year-old, scored from an impossible angle in the 86th, completing PSG's manita. As the clock ticked off on the final four minutes—and no more; Romanian referee Istvan Kovacs mercifully ended things just as after the 90th minute, no stoppage time added to Inter's misery—so did PSG's search for the one trophy that had evaded it. There has never been a more lopsided Champions League final, and that's not just thanks to the score. PSG were simply on another level from Inter, playing as if this were a summer friendly against an overmatched opponent from a much lesser league. It's a credit to how stunning PSG played Saturday that there's no disappointment to be had over being robbed of a dramatic final to a Champions League edition that featured plenty of drama on the way to Munich. There was only astonishment over how hard PSG kicked Inter's ass.
There will be talk of sportswashing's infinite coffers, and rightfully so; despite not having any members of its most recent star-studded trio anymore—Lionel Messi is in Miami just having fun with his pals, Neymar took a sojourn to Saudi Arabia and is now back in Brazil at Santos, and Kylian Mbappé went to Real Madrid to chase the same trophy PSG just won (oops!)—this PSG squad was built on the backs of unlimited money, thanks to Qatar's sports investment fund. The club did spend roughly €700 million over the past two seasons in the transfer market, after all. But it was money wisely spent, bringing in key contributors like Kvaratskhelia, Doué, João Neves, Barcola, and, of course, Dembélé, who finished Saturday with two assists, even if they were overshadowed by his own teammates' heroics.
In clearing out the stars and bringing in quality depth and technical wizards, PSG built this Champions League team from the ground up, and manager Luis Enrique—coaching in honor of his late daughter, who passed away in 2019 at the age of nine—got them to buy into his preferred style, one that opened up the field for his dribblers to create chaos, as they did on Saturday. This was a comprehensive victory by a complete side operating at the peak of its, and really of anyone's, powers. Whether that kind of dominance, with its provenance never in question, is impressive or not is up to each individual. But there should be no question that PSG deserved this trophy more than any other club, and that PSG won it by capping its run with a one-sided obliteration is all the more fitting.
