MANCHESTER — Paris St-Germain underlined their growing dynasty credentials with a commanding 4-2 Champions League victory over Manchester City in Manchester on Wednesday, racing into a 3-0 lead at half-time before adding another after a spirited second-half fightback from the Premier League leaders. The back-to-back European champions, who are looking to win five pieces of silverware this season, are now aiming to become only the fifth team since 1956 to win three successive European crowns and just the second in the Champions League era.
Luis Enrique's side sliced through City with astonishing ease in large spells, a ruthless blend of silky flicks and slick off-the-ball movement that left a dazed City several frames behind. "This PSG team are on a different level," Chris Sutton told BBC Radio 5 Live at half-time. "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." The display followed their 5-0 thrashing of Inter Milan in the 2025 final to win a first Champions League and squeezing past Arsenal on penalties in last season's showpiece.
"Unbelievable. PSG, what a team," Sutton added. "PSG's press, I don't think there's another team that press with their intensity and ferocity. 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." PSG have been France's most dominant force since the arrival of Qatar Sports Investments 15 years ago, but continental success only arrived after a change of approach.
"It's the end of the glitter," professed president Nasser Al-Khelaifi after years of lavish spending, ushering out the "flashy, bling-bling" era. Instead Enrique arrived in 2023 intent on building a coherent team, still with significant investment but focused on younger players who could be moulded by his philosophy and discipline while given room to flourish. The result was two scintillating Champions League triumphs. To frame that rise, the club are now measured against Europe's great dynasties — Helenio Herrera's Grande Inter, who won the Scudetto in 1962-63 and became the first to lift the European Cup without losing a game the following season as Sandro Mazzola netted twice against Real Madrid before defending the crown against Benfica, and Bela Guttmann's Benfica, who beat Barcelona in the 1961 final and, after teenage Eusebio joined that summer, beat Tottenham Hotspur in the semi-final before Eusebio scored twice after Ferenc Puskas' first-half hat-trick for Real Madrid to seal a second successive crown in 1962.
Bayern Munich provide the other modern benchmark, clinching three on the bounce in the mid-1970s with a backbone of Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller fresh off West Germany winning the 1974 World Cup, despite their domestic form dipping. PSG's lacklustre start to the domestic season has again given way to ruthless European form, and the victory in Manchester suggests they have clicked into gear when it matters. The result builds on PSG's 4-2 win over Manchester City to make it two wins from two and leaves Enrique's side well placed to join that elite bracket.