For many years since the 2011 takeover by the Qatar Sports Investments, on the international stage Paris Saint-Germain failed to live up to the amount of petro-dollars pumped into its budget.
Despite bringing in top football stars like Kylian Mbappe, Leo Messi or Neymar, as well as top managers like Carlo Ancelotti, Thomas Tuchel or Mauricio Pochettino - the 2020 UEFA Champions League final defeat against Bayern Munich remained the club's only appearance in the most important game of Europe's highest tier international club competition.
Up till 2025, that is - when, paradoxically, the Parisian side claimed the title with Europe's second youngest side of the season, following recently taken decision to stop bringing in world's top established players, and focus more on building upon the stars of the future.
Well - it worked like a charm, and pretty fast too!
Saturday's Champions League final, in which PSG faced a seasoned italian side, Internazionale FC, looked like the French wanted to make it up to the club's Qatari owners for all the disappointing seasons in Europe since the 2011 takeover.
Managed by an ex-Barcelona legend Luis Enrique, Les Parisiens crushed the Milan-based Nerazzurri 5-0, already leading 2-0 by the halftime whistle after a 12th minute goal by Achraf Hakimi, followed by the 2005-born Desire Doue's 20th minute strike.
After the break, the Italian side tried hard to close the distance, but it was just what the French were waiting for - and they mercilessly exploited the loosened-up defence of Inter by adding three more goals.
Doue, who was magnificent that night, found the net again in the 49th minute. Kvaratskhelia followed up with another goal in the 73rd, and - quite symbolically - 19 year old homegrown talent Senny Mayulu settled the score at 5-0 off the bench in the 86th.
It is worth adding that throughout 90 minutes Les Parisiens completely dominated the more experienced rivals, and never really looked out of control of the game.
It was a historic result, for more than one reason. First and foremost - PSG have never won Europe's top competition before. Secondly, it was the sophomore French Champions League triumph (after Olympique Marseille's victory over AC Milan in 1993), and third overall, European Cup era included.
Furthermore, never before in the final, since the Champions League format was conceived in 1992, have any team neither won by a five goal margin, nor scored five goals. And even delving deeper into the past European Cup format - to find a five-goal performance one would have to rewind as far back as 1963, when Portugal's Benfica beat Spain's Real Madrid 5-3 - a feat only exceeded by Real Madrid's 7-3 win against Germany's Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960.
Still - even this record win was by a four goal margin, so on May 31, 2025, Paris Saint Germain made European football history also in this regard.
Poland's Nicola Zalewski went in as a sub for Internazionale in the 53rd minute, while Piotr Zieliński spent the entire game on the Nerazzurri's bench.
Thanks to this, they became the 10th and 11th Polish player in history featured in the UEFA Champions League final match roster - following in the footsteps of Zbigniew Boniek (Juventus FC, 1983 and 1985), Józef Młynarczyk (FC Porto, 1987), Jerzy Dudek (Liverpool FC, 2005 and 2007), Tomasz Kuszczak (Manchester United, 2008, 2009 and 2011), Łukasz Piszczek, (Borussia Dortmund, 2013), Jakub Błaszczykowski (Borussia Dortmund, 2013), Robert Lewandowski (Borussia Dortmund, 2013; Bayern Munich, 2020). Marcin Bułka (Paris Saint Germain, 2020) and Marcel Lotka (Borussia Dortmund, 2024).
By entering the pitch, the 2002-born Nicola Zalewski also became the 7th Polish player to actually play in the Champions League final, and just the 5th Polish field player to do so. And that is not all - as Zalewski also became the second player overall in football history to play in the final of the Conference League (AS Roma, 2022), Europa League (AS Roma, 2023) and Champions League (Inter FC, 2025).
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Source: PAP, Weszlo.com, Interia.pl