tearing Manchester City apart<\/a> in large spells of their 4-2 Champions League victory on Wednesday, Paris St-Germain look well on track to join the latter bracket.<\/p>\nThe back-to-back European champions sliced through City with astonishing ease to take a 3-0 lead into half-time, and were still able to score another despite a spirited second-half fightback from the Premier League leaders.<\/p>\n
After obliterating Inter Milan 5-0 in the 2025 final before squeezing past Arsenal on penalties in last season’s showpiece game, Luis Enrique’s side are aiming to win a third consecutive European crown.<\/p>\n
They would be the fifth team to do so going back to 1956, and just the second in the Champions League era.<\/p>\n
“This PSG team are on a different level,” Chris Sutton told BBC Radio 5 Live at half-time.<\/p>\n
“They have just run all over Manchester City, who haven’t been able to string passes together. It’s been an absolute pummelling for Man City.”<\/p>\n
To mark PSG’s latest display of attacking excellence, we’re looking at how the Parisians compare to those clubs who have enjoyed the most dominant eras in European competition.<\/p>\n
Some will point out that football existed before the European Champion Clubs’ Cup began in 1955 – so apologies to Stan Cullis’ ‘world-champion’ Wolves outfit and the Mitropa Cup’s early Vienna heavyweights.<\/p>\n
However, this top 10 debate is centred around winning European football’s grandest prize.<\/p>\n
Paris St-Germain 2025-present<\/p>\n
OK, straight in with the current champions, because this is a dynasty in the making.<\/p>\n
Paris St-Germain are hoping to enter that bracket and the 4-2 win against Manchester City on Wednesday reminded the rest of Europe why you shouldn’t bet against them becoming continental champions for a third successive season.<\/p>\n
PSG had a lacklustre start to the domestic season – they always do, don’t they? – but boast an uncanny ability to click into gear when it matters. <\/p>\n
In Manchester, Luis Enrique’s side were at their unstoppable best. A ruthless blend of silky flicks and slick off-the-ball movement that saw a dazed City caught several frames behind.<\/p>\n
“Unbelievable. PSG, what a team,” Sutton said.<\/p>\n
“PSG’s press, I don’t think there’s another team that press with their intensity and ferocity.<\/p>\n
“This [City] is one of the best teams in the Premier League getting an absolutely roasting. This is them [PSG] having a slow start to the season. Heaven help everyone.”<\/p>\n
The Parisians have been France’s most dominant force since the arrival of Qatar Sports Investments 15 years ago, but it took a change of approach for the holy grail of continental success to arrive.<\/p>\n
“It’s the end of the glitter,” professed president Nasser Al-Khelaifi after years of lavish spending, ushering out the “flashy, bling-bling” era.<\/p>\n
Instead, Enrique arrived in 2023 intent on building a coherent team. There was still significant investment, but on younger players who could be moulded by his philosophy and discipline while given room to flourish.<\/p>\n
The result was two scintillating Champions League triumphs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some find success sweet but fleeting, others spend years building to the pinnacle, and then there are those…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-882820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}