PSG’s culture shift leads into mighty Club World Cup showdown with Bayern | Club World Cup 2025

THe crossed the last time, Vincent Kompany was on his way and Luis Enrique was about to go out. It was at the end of November at the Allianz Arena and the new manager of Bayern Munich awaited by the press room while his opposite number in Paris Saint-Germain spoke to the media; Listening, he could barely believe what he heard. “It was completely exaggerated,” recalls Kompany in Atlanta when he again followed Luis Enrique in a chair aligned in front of the cameras, and before another big night, seven months later and more than 7,000 miles away. “Now we are talking about the same game from a completely different perspective; it is interesting to move forward quickly and see how things can change.”

That night, Bayern beat PSG 1-0 in the Champions League. Five matches in the competition, PSG had won only once, against Girona at the Parc des Princes and it was their third defeat, fear that even with the new extensive format that they cannot leave the group. “I heard all these major statements:” It’s over “,” said Kompany. “Most of the matches, they should win 5-0 and in one way or another, it’s 1-1 or they lose and that did not reflect their domination. You look at the team now, the evolution, and it is pleasant to see that in these moments, consistency is paid. It was strong enough to continue. And it is not a compliment, it’s just a fact.”

And the facts are as follows: now PSG is European champions, having won the final with the greatest margin of all time. They head towards the quarterfinals of the club World Cup in Atlanta, a game that Kompany described as a “perfect storm” and one said that he would buy a ticket if he did not have to sit on the bench, and would do it as a favorite. Not only for this competition, but beyond, the change of culture and the immense resources which brought their long expectations to an end of reinforcement of the impression that it is a team which could dominate for a certain time – even if Luis Enrique insisted that “if you do not evolve, you are dead”.

“It’s an incredible team, there are not two ways about it, and the keyword is that they are a team,” said Kompany. “It is not only the individual quality, it is as as a team, I have not seen many who behaves with this intensity at each phase of the game. And I mean, it is All. They are the winners of the Champions League, they come from a period of success and there is no reason to think that they will not be their best tomorrow. But if I could choose a team to face, it would always be the winners and they are the winners. I wouldn’t have otherwise.

“The kind of game that PSG has been able to develop, which is linked to their success, has been very impressive,” added Kompany. “They do not only count on the tactical side, nor the individual qualities, they rely on the principles of the team. If you watch a game, tactics can change all the time. But these are principles. “

The principle was a concept to which Kompany returned here, something deeper than the play for which his admiration was clear. At one point, he called the principles of PSG – and indeed Bayern – “quite extreme”. He discussed their willingness to press high, intensity, the desire to run and run, expressing the feeling that there is something a little different about them, and this returns to the coach, has given an authority that others have been refused in Paris.

If there is one image of this, it may be Ousmane Dembélé on the edge of the area, ready for a sprinter, to hunt the goalkeeper. After the final of the Champions League, Luis Enrique declared that he would give him the Ballon d’Or: “Not only for the titles he won or the goals he scored, but for his pressing, for the way he defended in this final: this is what you call a team.”

There were echoes of a scene in the superb documentary No idea teneis or puta In which Luis Enrique tries to inspire Kylian Mbappé by talking to him about his idol, the basketball player Michael Jordan. Jordan, he said to Mbappé, defended in his life and, no matter the points, that was what made him a leader. At the end of the series, when PSG is eliminated from the Champions League and everyone knows that Mbappé will leave, many of them fearing the worst, there is a line where Luis Enrique says that next year, they will be better; Next year, he will control all players.

This of course means controlling the club too, its culture. For the moment at least, the hierarchy buys it: how could they not after the coach as good as his word? There was a line that Nasser Al-Khelaifi used after training in the fifth third stadium, 30 minutes outside Atlanta on Friday morning which summed him up, a new identity which he wishes to express now having turned away from what he had tried before, tasting in a coach like never before. “We have 23 or 24 warriors who fight for their coach; Their motivation is to fight every game. ”

When he was questioned about Dembélé and the Ballon d’Or, Al-Khelaifi added: “His season was magnificent. If he does not win the Ballon d’Or, it is the Ballon d’Or. He is a star, but the star is now the team.”

There were also laughter in the fifth third stadium and many. For all speeches on work, commitment, solidarity – and it’s real – there is something else, something simple: pleasure. Why does Dembélé, for example, adhere to an idea? How can he do things he had never done before? Because he tastes he. Because it’s nice. Football is supposed to be fun. It is also a principle, there is the moment when Luis Enrique corrected here, and there, the two managers hoped, in what could well the game of this club World Cup so far. What, maybe, even should be.

“Players know the requests. When they all work for the team, the responsibility is greater than it is as an individual. Freedom is fighting for your colleagues, freedom is fighting for your club, freedom if you fight for your team,” said Luis Enrique. “” Fighting “? This is playing football is what we are trying to do. This group of players tries to play good football at the limit. It is a group of players who want not only to win but offer a show, so that our fans like that and all fans like it.”

They themselves too, and it is at the heart of all this, insisted Luis Enrique. Football, he says, is a fun, fun. It is supposed to be anyway, as serious as it sometimes becomes. “It is very basic, very simple and very difficult at the same time. It is easy to find the words to say it, but doing it is more difficult,” he said. When the word “pleasure” was put to him, he replied: “I think it is the key to everything we do, the key to me as a coach. In each club, I say that our goal is to provide a show. People do not go to theater or cinema to get bored. And the level of performance can go hand in hand with appreciation. And it’s the players we want.

But it is not only to win, it is a way we think to be attractive for everyone. »»