Enrique s Paris, using technology to suppress the Premier League like Gua-style Barcelona

Sports Weekly All-Media Reporter Wang Qinbo

Paris Saint-Germain defeated Arsenal twice at the Princes Stadium to advance to the Champions League final and met with Inter Milan. This is not only the second time that a Ligue 1 team has entered the Champions League in five years, but also the first time in the Champions League finals since 2004, there are no Bundesliga, Premier League or La Liga teams.

The 2004 Champions League final was a dark horse encounter. Porto, coached by Mourinho, defeated Monaco, coached by Deschamps 3-0. The two participating teams were very limited in terms of budget and lineup, and were seriously unpopular from the beginning of the season to the semi-finals.

Starting from Liverpool's reversal of AC Milan in Istanbul in 2005, the Spanish team won the Champions League trophy 10 times, the Premier League team 5 times, the Bundesliga 2 times, and the Serie A team won the championship for a long time, in 2007, AC Milan successfully took revenge against Liverpool in the final, and in 2010, Inter Milan defeated Bayern in the final to win the triple crown. After that, Serie A teams entered the finals three times and all failed, namely Juventus 2 times and Inter Milan 1 time.

This time the meeting between non-Germany, Spain and the English team will be very different from Portugal and France in 2004, because what is underway is the first season after the comprehensive reform of the Champions League. Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan are both champion teams in their respective leagues, and they surpassed Porto and Monaco in terms of financial resources and lineups. These two teams are not the biggest favorites before the start of the season, but entering the finals cannot be considered an upset. They are the teams with the most stable performance in European competitions in recent years. They have both reached the finals and lost by one goal. Paris Saint-Germain lost to Flick's Bayern in the 2020 finals, and Inter Milan lost to Guardiola's Manchester City in 2023.

Entering the final this time is of great significance to Paris Saint-Germain. During Tuchel's coaching period in 2020, Paris Saint-Germain entered the Champions League final for the first time, but the competition system that year was completely different. Due to the epidemic, the final stage of the knockout match was held in Lisbon, and a single-game elimination system was implemented in an empty field. This time Paris Saint-Germain entered the finals at his doorstep, and Paris fans celebrated wildly.

Paris lost Mbappe last summer and completely bid farewell to the era of superstars, while Inter Milan has been facing financial difficulties. But the common point between these two teams is that they are very attentive in team building. Inter Milan benefits from Marota's excellent material selection and management, while Paris Saint-Germain relies on the reconstruction project of youth and revitalization with sports director Louis Campos since coaching. Inter Milan had veterans like Archerby step forward at a critical moment, while Paris Saint-Germain witnessed the rapid explosion and growth of the young players of our team after entering the knockout stage.

Paris Saint-Germain achieved a double-kill against Arsenal in the second leg. Judging from the game process alone, it was not without thrilling. Arsenal put a lot of pressure on Paris from the beginning. At the physical level, we can see that at the end of the 90 minutes, many Parisian players were almost overdrafted. Vitinia lost a penalty kick and Marginhos's movements were deformed, which further revealed the huge psychological pressure faced by the players.

But from the entire promotion process, Paris Saint-Germain can be regarded as one of the most convincing final teams in the Champions League process in recent years. They started with Manchester City in the penultimate round of group matches in January, and encountered a total of 4 Premier League teams, all ending with Enrique's team taking the upper hand. Manchester City lost to Paris 2-4 and had to meet Real Madrid in the qualifying round. Paris then eliminated Liverpool in a penalty kick in 16-8. This was the closest result of the Premier League team in the process of the promotion to the knockout stage. Even so, both the media and the Liverpool coach were shocked by the strength shown by Paris Saint-Germain and praised Enrique's team. This is a very rare continental team that went to Anfield to overwhelm Liverpool in terms of ball possession and shots.

Paris Saint-Germain has received praise from several European football celebrities before entering the finals. Even in the coming years, Enrique's Paris will be a classic case. Because this is the first time in the past 10 years that a team has achieved a comprehensive suppression of Premier League teams at the technical and tactical level. The last team with the same ability is Guardiola's Barcelona. In an era when star resources are increasingly concentrated in the Premier League, similar cases are always worthy of in-depth research.

Enrique's formation of Paris has several similarities with Guardiola's Barcelona back then. One of the important ideas is to use foot skills to restrain the super speed, impact and confrontational ability of Premier League teams. Although Arsenal has been very hard-working from the beginning, the time when Paris was really suffocating on the tactical level was only 0-2 behind to about 10 minutes when Saka missed the opportunity 2-2 in front of the goal.

During that time, Arsenal began to make a long pass and attack directly in despair, and the small PSG player obviously felt a huge disadvantage under the impact. But why did Arsenal give up "English football" and become cautious again after missing 2-2? Until the game was about to end, Thomas Patty was still looking for a safe short pass opportunity...

This is because Arsenal immediately became alert to Paris's super strong counterattack ability. Once the Premier League teams are brave enough to push forward and attack quickly, the front and back formations will definitely be lengthened, leaving huge space. Paris Saint-Germain has a very strong "punishment ability" at this time, and their players can use their good foot skills to quickly use space to launch attacks. Therefore, Premier League teams have to tighten their formation again and dare not make repeated and fierce sprints without protection.

Enrique not only stood in front of the second Champions League trophy in his coaching career, but also had the hope of realizing his second triple-winning title in his coaching career. More importantly, he trained a team with great ornamental value, with many amazing players on the technical level. For a metropolis like Paris that lacks football fanaticism, Enrique is a great passionate spreader. His Paris Saint-Germain has hope to attract more attention and love than Marseille, which defeated AC Milan in the Champions League final.