Paris Saint-Germain's Bradley Barcola celebrates scoring their second goal against Stade de Reims with Desire Doue. Reuters
Paris Saint-Germain's Bradley Barcola celebrates scoring their second goal against Stade de Reims with Desire Doue. Reuters
Paris Saint-Germain's Bradley Barcola celebrates scoring their second goal against Stade de Reims with Desire Doue. Reuters
Paris Saint-Germain's Bradley Barcola celebrates scoring their second goal against Stade de Reims with Desire Doue. Reuters

PSG v Inter Milan: Luis Enrique's exciting young team eye elusive Champions League crown


Ian Hawkey
  • English
  • Arabic

At almost every big step that Inter Milan and their head coach Simone Inzaghi have taken to the Uefa Champions League final, some reference has been made to how low-budget the Italian club feel compared to their opponents.

Bayern Munich, Inzaghi reminded reporters when Inter, at the last-eight stage, removed from the German champions the chance of contesting the final in their home, the Allianz Arena, are far richer than his employers.

So are Manchester City, he noted, Inter having begun their European campaign with a goalless draw against City back in September. And, of course, megabucks Paris Saint-Germain, whom Inter meet in Munich on Saturday can call on far greater resources than Inzaghi does.

He is right about that. According to the last survey by Deloitte, respected auditors of football finance, Inter are indeed punching above their weight to have reached a second Champions League final within three seasons.

They rank 14th in the 2025 Deloitte Money League, a study based on club revenues generated in 2023/24 – that’s just behind neighbours AC Milan, the top-ranked Serie A club. Real Madrid, breaking the €1 billion mark for annual earnings, are top, City second, and PSG third, with revenues of over €800m, more than twice that of Inter.

PSG’s position in elite football’s economic hierarchy, like City’s, marks a rapid rise, and like City – remade by investment from Abu Dhabi in the period since 2008 – their ascent owes greatly to the impulse provided by backing from the Gulf.

Since Qatar Sports Investments took a majority shareholding in what was then a financially fragile French club and set about elevating Paris into a major force on football’s grand stage, they have turned into heavyweights. But unlike City, who beat Inter in the European Cup final in 2023, they have yet to mark that growth with the most desired of trophies.

Should PSG achieve a maiden Champions League success in Munich, they will have completed a circle. Back in 2011, when their Qatari investors and strategists took control they looked above all to the city of Milan for guidance on championship calibre. They had Leonardo, the former Brazilian footballer and previously a head coach at both AC Milan and Inter, as their director of football.

The first coach the new bosses appointed would be Carlo Ancelotti, then boasting a series of medals from AC Milan. They brought in two Thiagos to lend expertise to the playing squad. Thiago Silva, signed from Milan to command the defence and Thiago Motta, the midfielder recruited from Inter, would form the spine of the team for many years.

Coaches have come and gone at quite a rate since Ancelotti, but in the PSG team that lines up against Inter on Saturday, you can still make out the past stripes of Inter and Milan. In goal will be Gianluigi Donnarumma, without whose excellence a tense last-16 tie against Liverpool may not have been resolved in PSG’s favour. He joined four years ago from AC Milan. At right-back, although filling many roles outside of that narrow definition, will be the player who has assumed much of the leadership once given to PSG by their Thiagos – the outstanding Achraf Hakimi.

Hakimi, whose career bestrides every one of the four Champions League finalists of this year and last - he started at Real Madrid, moved to Borussia Dortmund then to Inter – has left a huge imprint on the run to the final: eight goal-contributions, including goals in the quarter-final against Aston Villa and the semi against Arsenal, from his 16 Champions League appearances.

Those are startling statistics for a full-back. Some of that attacking appetite can be attributed to the formative season Hakimi spent at Inter in 2020/21, thriving in a 3-4-3 formation. Inter then sold Hakimi to PSG, aged just 22, for a shade over €70m. That’s a startling amount for a full-back. And it’s one of the deals that has made PSG the club who, in the 13 years of their so-called ‘Qatar era’ have paid more than any other club into Inter’s treasury in total transfer fees. Inzaghi may envy the Parisiens their wealth and backers in Doha, but Inter have also benefited greatly from PSG’s activity in the marketplace.

Hakimi has been a terrific buy. He was described this week by his former coach with the Morocco national team, Herve Renard, as “the best right-back in the world”. If Inter’s Denzel Dumfries, a worthy inheritor of Hakimi’s wing-back role, might want to challenge that status, Hakimi’s importance to the dynamic PSG style, and to the second decade of the ‘Qatar era’ can hardly be understated.

When he and Donnarumma moved to Paris in the summer of 2021, they represented a long line of doing business with Serie A clubs but also an investment in youth.

Both were in their early 20s but already worldly. The simultaneous arrivals at the club of Lionel Messi, then in his mid-30s and Sergio Ramos, even older, may have kept up an old PSG habit of bringing in superstar names, but the tide was turning.

PSG are no longer so starry, but perhaps better for that. The squad who travel to Bavaria for Saturday's final will include no players of the cachet of Messi, or Neymar, or Zlatan Ibrahimovic or David Beckham, all of whom have drawn the limelight at the Parc des Princes during the Qatar era, and they are no longer the club of Kylian Mbappe, who left for Madrid last year – but they look closer than any previous version of PSG to achieving the Champions League dream.

“The star now is the team,” the club president Nasser Al Khelaifi says of a side that, post Mbappe, thrills to a trio of other young French forwards like Ousmane Dembele, Bradley Barcola and the prodigious teenager Desire Doue. It’s a side that needs no ageing Sergio Ramos to give panache to the back line when the tireless Hakimi can do that with no apparent symptoms of fatigue. The current PSG may still scour Italian football with a bulging chequebook, but in Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, signed from Napoli for around €70m in January, they have a long-term investment.

The Georgian winger, as watchable a dribbler as the €222m Neymar was at at his peak, is 24, the right fit for a PSG who registered the youngest line-up – average age 23 – of any team to have reached the knockout phase of this season’s Champions League.

Inter are designed in a different way. In their quarter-final tie against Bayern, Inzaghi fielded the oldest XI in this season’s competition – a shade over 31. Among his achievements has been to extend the career spans of players acquired at low transfer fees because they were well into their 30s. Men like defender Francesco Acerbi and midfielder Henrikh Mhkitaryan are in their upper 30s now but still influential and valued for their gumption. “We do not have the funds of clubs like Bayern, City or PSG,” said Inzaghi. “But we can match all of those with our heart and organisation.”

Luis Enrique, the PSG head coach, acknowledges that this final easily looks like a story of youth against experience. But he has built a PSG with momentum, drive and focus. “We’re a young team, yes,” says Luis Enrique, “but we’re also mature and we know how to resolve problems.”

COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3ECompany%20name%3A%20CarbonSifr%3Cbr%3EStarted%3A%202022%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20Dubai%3Cbr%3EFounders%3A%20Onur%20Elgun%2C%20Mustafa%20Bosca%20and%20Muhammed%20Yildirim%3Cbr%3ESector%3A%20Climate%20tech%3Cbr%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%241%20million%20raised%20in%20seed%20funding%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm

Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm

Transmission: 9-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh117,059

Disclaimer

Director: Alfonso Cuaron 

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville 

Rating: 4/5

TEST SQUADS

Bangladesh: Mushfiqur Rahim (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Liton Das, Shakib Al Hasan, Mominul Haque, Nasir Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Mehedi Hasan, Shafiul Islam, Taijul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed.

Australia: Steve Smith (captain), David Warner, Ashton Agar, Hilton Cartwright, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Matthew Wade, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Matt Renshaw, Mitchell Swepson and Jackson Bird.

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
  • Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
  • Flexible payment plans from developers
  • Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
  • DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key recommendations
  • Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
  • Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
  • Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
  • More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
THE LIGHT

Director: Tom Tykwer

Starring: Tala Al Deen, Nicolette Krebitz, Lars Eidinger

Rating: 3/5

Specs

Engine: 51.5kW electric motor

Range: 400km

Power: 134bhp

Torque: 175Nm

Price: From Dh98,800

Available: Now

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

Global state-owned investor ranking by size

1.

United States

2.

China

3.

UAE

4.

Japan

5

Norway

6.

Canada

7.

Singapore

8.

Australia

9.

Saudi Arabia

10.

South Korea

UK-EU trade at a glance

EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years

Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products

Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries

Smoother border management with use of e-gates

Cutting red tape on import and export of food

Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20myZoi%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Syed%20Ali%2C%20Christian%20Buchholz%2C%20Shanawaz%20Rouf%2C%20Arsalan%20Siddiqui%2C%20Nabid%20Hassan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2037%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Initial%20undisclosed%20funding%20from%20SC%20Ventures%3B%20second%20round%20of%20funding%20totalling%20%2414%20million%20from%20a%20consortium%20of%20SBI%2C%20a%20Japanese%20VC%20firm%2C%20and%20SC%20Venture%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

 

Rock in a Hard Place: Music and Mayhem in the Middle East
Orlando Crowcroft
Zed Books

The burning issue

The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.

Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins

Read part two: how climate change drove the race for an alternative 

Read part one: how cars came to the UAE

THE CLOWN OF GAZA

Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah 

Starring: Alaa Meqdad

Rating: 4/5

The%20specs
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E3.6-litre%2C%20V6%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Eeight-speed%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E285hp%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E353Nm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDh159%2C900%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Enow%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The years Ramadan fell in May

1987

1954

1921

1888

Updated: May 30, 2025, 7:14 AM`