UEFA Recap: PSG Captures Long-Sought Champions League Title

UEFA Recap: PSG Captures Long-Sought Champions League Title originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

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A very long wait ended in about 20 minutes. After 54 years as a club and 18 previous UEFA Champions League (UCL) appearances,
Paris St.-Germain leaped to a 2-0 lead over Inter Milan in a third of an hour, then coasted to its first—and long-sought—UCL title, 5-0. Emerging young star Désiré Doué assisted on the first goal and scored the second, before finishing the first of the team’s three second-half goals to complete the rout.

The game capped off one of the most unusual and perhaps game-changing Champions League competitions yet. Starting this season, a new league format was introduced. The 36 qualifying teams were split up into four groups of nine. Seeding was used to even up the draw. 

Instead of the traditional home-and-home matchups, each team played eight games in this format, facing an opponent just once. All the points earned were put into a 1-to-36 table. The top eight earned automatic spots in the round-of-16 knockout tournament. The next 16 (finishing 9th through 24th) entered yet another series of playoffs, this time home-and-home. The eight winners from that group would also join the round of 16. Finish 25th and lower and you were out. 

Complicated? At first, it seemed so, but once the games got started and fans saw that they had a 36-team league table to follow through the ups and downs of eight rounds of games, the drama ramped up quickly. In the end, there were some close calls for the favorites, some surprise rising stars, and the kind of down-to-the-wire action that UEFA dreamed about when they created the format.

 The League Phase

Most of the games went to form, but the biggest upset was probably unheralded Lille shocking mighty Real Madrid. It was the first time the French side had ever played the famed Spanish team and they made the most of it, creating history with a 1-0 win. Lille continued its amazing run by finishing seventh overall in the league table and earning automatic advancement. Benfica later nearly pulled off a similar feat against Barcelona, running up a 4-2 lead. But three late goals by the Catalan giants turned the game into a remarkable 5-4 victory. 

Former UCL champions Manchester City, however, were on the wrong end of a turnaround in the dying stages, conceding three times in the last quarter to let Feyenoord tie 3-3. It was the first time in the Champions League that a team blew a three-goal lead in the final 15 minutes. City was also on the wrong end of a fun moment for U.S. fans, when Tim Weah assisted on a Weston McKennie goal in Juventus’s 2-0 win. It was the first time a pair of American players had joined forces, teaming up to create and score a goal in the competition. As for City, only a final-game 3-1 triumph over Club Brugge allowed the champs from England to advance. 

With only one win and one draw to show for its first five games, PSG needed three points from its final game, beating 4-1 Stuttgart to make the playoffs. Three goals in the first 40 minutes eased any worry in the City of Love. Things improved quickly for PSG in the playoffs.

Also of statistical note in this phase was a Champions League-record 9-2 win by Bayern Munich over Zagreb. Harry Kane recorded three penalty kicks, another UCL first, and became England’s top all-time Champions League scorer as well. And kudos to Brest, who made it into the first round of playoffs in its first-ever Champions League appearance (only to be swamped by PSG in the two-game matchup).

While not as big a surprise as Lille, Aston Villa finishing eighth caught many experts by surprise. Villa’s 2024–25 play in the Premier League was way up, 
leading to Champions League success. 

On the final day of the league phase, only two of the much-desired top eight spots were assured (Liverpool and Barcelona), while all but two of the 36 teams had earned at least one win. AC Milan saw its standing drop from sixth to 13th with a surprise loss to Dinamo Zagreb, while Lille and Villa cemented their 
top-eight spots with solid final victories. 

 9 Through 24

The 16 teams that finished below the top eight were put into pairs, matching teams 9-16 against teams 17-24. In this first round of playoffs (played in the traditional two-legged-style) to determine who would join the top eight overall, some mighty trees had to fall. Two of them met—Real Madrid and Man City—and Los Blancos needed a hat trick from the incredible Kylian Mbappé to make it through. But the real shocker in this race for the final 16 came when No. 24 Brugge knocked out No. 9 Atalanta, a milder form of a 16-over-1 March Madness upset. 

Italy did not benefit greatly from the new format as Juventus and Milan joined Atalanta in the loser’s column. Brest was just happy to be a part of things, but getting swamped by 10-0 in aggregate by PSG probably took a little out of their celebrations. 

Bayern got a last-minute goal from Alphonso Davies to knock out Brendan Rodgers’ game Celtic side (3-2 on aggregate).

Round of 16

With the top eight now joined by the play-in eight, the ultimate showdowns could commence with quarters, semis, and the final. The big-name matchups were everywhere in this round and something, again, had to give. In an all-Spanish-capital pairing, it was Real who won over Atlético, though they needed penalties to do it. In other news from Spain, Barcelona continued its march by knocking out Benfica 4-1. One highlight was a superb, curving, left-footed goal by Lamine Yamal, who at just 17, became the youngest goal-scorer in Champions League history. Just after the regular La Liga season, Yamal cashed in, signing a $33 million-per-year contract. There was still more than a month to go before he turned 18! 

A pair of perennial powerhouses, Liverpool and PSG, also needed PKs to find a winner. Liverpool could make only one shot in the shootout, while PSG buried four. Facing the mighty Italian keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma didn’t make the Reds’ job easier.

Next up for PSG were Aston Villa, who beat Club Brugge to advance to the last eight. The French side took a 5-1 aggregate lead, only to watch Villa score three in a row in game two. But they could not find a tying goal and PSG advanced.

Lille’s Cinderella story ended with a 3-2 loss to Borussia Dortmund while Arsenal manhandled PSV 9-3 to set up a mouth-watering matchup with Real Madrid.

In those games, Arsenal’s Declan Rice had the biggest highlights of the round, smashing two picture-
perfect free-kick goals in his team’s 3-0 first-leg win. In the return, the Gunners triumphed again for a 5-1 aggregate victory. It was Arsenal’s first UCL semi-final since 2009. PSG continued its chase for its first-ever title with a 5-3 aggregate win over Dortmund, though Dortmund’s Serhou Guirassy netted a hat trick in the return match. 

Inter advanced after edging out Bayern Munich 4-3 on aggregate.

Semifinals

Inter 7, Barcelona 6

Months after this series, fans are still talking about it, putting the two matchups into the pantheon of greatest ever in the long history of top-flight European club football. This classic featured two top teams in a pair of memorable games. The first started badly for favorites Barcelona at home, as Inter went up 2-0 in the first 21 minutes. Young Barça star Yamal then curled in a 
beautiful left-footed strike and 
Ferran Torres tied the score.

Milan went in front again, only for Raphinha’s fiercely-struck shot to hit the crossbar and enter the net off the back of Milan keeper Yann Sommer, tying the score at 3-3.

Incredibly, the return match at the San Siro in Milan was even better. Once again, the Italians surged ahead on goals by Lautauro Martinez and Hakan Çalhanoglu. But, as in game one, Barcelona bounced back in the second half, scoring twice, including a series-tying Dani Olmo header in the 60th minute. With just three minutes left, Raphinha then scored to silence the home crowd and put Barcelona up 3-2. But Inter had more miracles to hand.

In injury time, Francesco Acerbi scored an excellent one-touch goal at the near post to tie the score again at 3-3. It was the centerback’s first goal of the year and sent the stadium into an uproar. A shocked Barcelona team then faced 30 minutes of extra time, during which both teams wasted early chances.

In the ninth minute of extra time, Milan found a winner. Davide Frattesi calmly collected a loose ball about 10 yards out and sent a left-footed shot into the net. The drama was not over, as Sommer was forced into a pair of diving, fingertip saves to protect the score. The aggregate 7-6 win sent Milan back to the final (they lost to Man City in 2023) and a disappointed Barcelona home.

PSG 2, Arsenal 1

In comparison, the second semi was a much tamer affair. Rising star Ousmane Dembélé scored the only goal in the first game, while goalkeeper Donnarumma came up big several times to protect his clean sheet. Not even a missed PK could stop PSG from winning the second leg 2-1 to clinch a spot in the final.

Championship Match

Doué assisted on a goal by Achraf Hakimi in the 12th minute after PSG blazed out of the kickoff with attacking football. They kept their foot on the gas from start to finish, and Inter looked like they didn’t know what hit them. Their golden jerseys were tarnished by the end. The PSG control and focus were just too much. In the 20th minute, Doué smacked a hard shot that glanced off Milan defender Federico Dimarco and past a chagrined Sommer to double the lead. It was all over but the shouting of the PSG fans, who watched with glee as their team dismantled the proud Italian team. 

In the second half, Doué added to his growing résumé by running onto a perfect through ball from Vitinha to beat Sommer again. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Senny Mayulu added late goals to push the winning margin to the largest in Champions League final history. PSG had as many goals as Inter had shots on target. PSG goalie Donnarumma was forced to make only one real save, but with his team already 4-0 up, it was anticlimactic. 

All that was left was for captain Marquinhos to raise the long-sought trophy, the one that not even Messi, Mbappé, and Neymar could bring home to Paris.

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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Aug 12, 2025, where it first appeared.