PSG battles for chance to go back-to-back

Paris Saint-Germain has been the most thrilling outfit in Europe over the last year, but Luis Enrique's men showed another side to their game as they held off Bayern Munich on Wednesday to reach a second straight Champions League final.

After its epic 5-4 victory in the first leg of their semifinal, when the attacking quality of both sides made for one of the greatest games in the competition's history, PSG got the job done in the return fixture at the Allianz Arena thanks to a brilliant early goal followed by a heroic rearguard action.

Ousmane Dembele scored inside three minutes after a typically devastating counterattack, and the French champion then set about thwarting its host, as Bayern very nearly failed to score in a game for the first time all season.

Harry Kane did eventually equalize on the night, but his strike came too late and a 1-1 draw took PSG through 6-5 on aggregate.

"Tonight showed what type of team we are," Enrique told broadcaster Canal Plus.

"We showed our maturity, being able to defend as well as attack. As a coach, it was a pleasure to see that performance."

"We can't always win with magic or extraordinary play. Today we had to defend a lot but we defended very well," added Desire Doue.

The display of defensive solidarity and solidity was led by the immense Willian Pacho, the Ecuadorian who, remarkably, won all six of his duels on the pitch.

Warren Zaire-Emery was magnificent filling in at right-back in the absence of the injured Achraf Hakimi, and the 20-year-old France midfielder has been, arguably, PSG's player of the season.

He has played more minutes than anyone else for the team, recovering from a difficult last campaign personally, when he was only a bit-part player of the side that won the Champions League.

His work rate, energy and consistency have helped PSG overcome the fitness issues that threatened to derail it after an exhausting 2024-25 campaign, when a run to July's Club World Cup final meant it only had a three-week off-season.

The Parisians had been chasing glory in Europe's elite club competition since the transformative Qatari takeover of 2011, but kept falling short, sometimes in humiliating fashion, before winning the trophy for the first time last year.

Can PSG repeat?

Now, it is the first team since Liverpool in 2019 to reach back-to-back finals in the competition, and a win over Arsenal in Budapest on May 30 will see it become only the second side in the Champions League era to retain the title.

The only team to have achieved that feat so far is Zinedine Zidane's Real Madrid sides of 2016-18.

Enrique also has the chance to join Zidane, Pep Guardiola, Bob Paisley and Carlo Ancelotti in winning the European Cup as a coach for the third time — he also won it with Barcelona in 2015.

"We have a magnificent young team in which everyone gives everything, and we have the best coach in the world," said PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi with the beaming smile of a man who probably cannot believe just how successfully the club has moved on from the era of Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Lionel Messi.

Enrique has transformed Dembele into a Ballon d'Or-winning center-forward and has helped make the thrilling Khvicha Kvaratskhelia the best player in this season's Champions League.

The Georgian set up Dembele's goal in Munich with a stunning breakaway and has been the most decisive player in the knockout stages with seven goals and three assists in eight games.

'Terrifying'

It looked at one point as if the decision to not properly strengthen the squad after last season might backfire, especially as goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma was sold to Manchester City and not adequately replaced.

But nine of the starters from last season's 5-0 final demolition of Inter Milan in Munich started in the same stadium on Wednesday, with the only absentees being the departed Donnarumma and the injured Hakimi.

Notably, PSG has now won all seven knockout ties under Enrique when playing at home in the first leg, and it can now look forward to a third Champions League final in seven seasons.

It will be favorite against Arsenal, especially as it has now made it clear that it can mix things up.

"This PSG side is terrifying, because they have shown they can hold on when things are difficult and defend well," said Samir Nasri, the ex-Arsenal star who is now a pundit on French television.