Head coach Luis Enrique follows in the footsteps of Bob Paisley, Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane in becoming just the fifth manager to win three Champions League\/European Cup titles.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard, who was unveiled as PSG boss in July 2023, also won the Champions League as a player with Barcelona in 2014-15.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, “he didn’t want to take the job when he was first asked”, journalist Guillem Balague told BBC Radio 5 Live. <\/p>\n
“[He said] ‘you are full of stars – I’m not interested’. He was promised [he could] change the culture and the question was different. It wasn’t how can we win the Champions League, it was what kind of football do we want? <\/p>\n
“The answer was offensive, attractive and Luis Enrique represented that and he was convinced he could do that.”<\/p>\n
Under Luis Enrique, PSG lost their record goalscorer and five-time Ligue 1 player of the year Kylian Mbappe to Real Madrid on a free transfer in 2024.<\/p>\n
But, arguably, the France forward’s departure has helped balance the team.<\/p>\n
PSG scored 44 more goals across all competitions in their first season without Mbappe (2024-25) compared with his final season at the club.<\/p>\n
“Everyone plays like a team,” says Balague of the current squad. <\/p>\n
“PSG is the team with the fewest yellow cards in Europe’s top leagues. That is a reflection of emotional control and everyone playing for everybody instead of being angry. <\/p>\n
“He [Luis Enrique] said before when Mbappe left he prefers five players scoring 10 goals than one scoring 50. This season PSG have 20 different goalscorers. It is a collective approach.”<\/p>\n
They also equalled the record for most goals scored in a single edition of the European Cup\/Champions League, with their 45 drawing level with Barcelona’s total in 1999-2000.<\/p>\n
Luis Enrique has also created a brilliant relationship with PSG’s fans.<\/p>\n
After their Champions League win last year, they unveiled a flag in tribute to their coach and daughter Xana – who died aged nine in 2019 – showing the pair planting a Barcelona flag in the centre circle after the 2015 European triumph over Juventus in Berlin.<\/p>\n
And in Budapest, before their win over Arsenal, a giant banner showing Luis Enrique lifting the famous trophy was displayed among the French faithful.<\/p>\n
He was cheered on by the PSG fans passionately as he was lifted into the air by his players while hold the Champions League trophy.<\/p>\n
After collecting his medal he danced in front of them with president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, celebrating the trophy that for so long had eluded the club. Not once, but twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Head coach Luis Enrique follows in the footsteps of Bob Paisley, Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-705076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}