Opinion – PSG and the Champions League: 40 years that changed all | OneFootball

On September 17, 1986, Paris Saint-Germain played the first European Cup match in its history against Vitkovice. Forty years later, as L’Équipe points out, the contrast is almost absurd: the club that was just discovering Europe’s top competition back then is now the two-time reigning European champion. Paris has moved into another dimension. And, apparently, so have we.

A different Europe, a different PSG

Even the format alone tells you it was another era. In 1986-1987, the European Cup featured 31 teams and didn’t really bother with administrative suspense. Paris faced Vitkovice over two legs, and that was that. After a 2-2 draw at the Parc des Princes and then a 1-0 defeat in Czechoslovakia, it was curtains. Thank you, goodbye, maybe see you next year.

Forty years later, you practically need an Excel spreadsheet to follow the Champions League. 36 clubs, eight different opponents, four home matches, four away, an overall table, direct qualifiers, playoff teams… Where the old European Cup had the brutal simplicity of sudden death, the new Champions League fully embraces its convoluted side. You can prefer one or the other, but the contrast is pretty striking.

And in the middle of all that, PSG followed the same path: it changed scale.

When the exceptional becomes the bare minimum

The craziest part, in the end, is not even how much Paris has grown. It’s how quickly we got used to it.

Luis Enrique’s PSG (56) didn’t just win the Champions League. It won it for the first time in 2025, then retained it in May 2026 against Arsenal, winning the final on penalties after a 1-1 draw. In the modern era of the competition, only Real Madrid had previously managed to defend its crown.

Normally, something like that should be enough to keep you floating on a little cloud for a few years. Except no. Football doesn’t work like that, and Paris even less so. Very quickly, the next question arrives: what now? A third? A dynasty? Another semifinal? Another final? Every major success immediately raises the bar a little higher.

And let’s be clear: that isn’t completely absurd. A club that grows inevitably changes its standards. No one is going to ask the PSG of 2026 to approach a European round of 16 as if it had just discovered the continent. The resources, the squad, the trophy haul, and the ambitions have nothing in common anymore. Today’s Paris has to be judged by today’s expectations.

But there is still something quite fascinating about this ability to turn the extraordinary into a simple baseline. Yesterday, winning the Champions League was the ultimate dream. Today, winning it two years in a row can almost become the starting point for the next debate.

High standards do not rule out memory

This is obviously not about dusting off the old “you should already be happy” line. That would be too easy, and frankly a bit tiresome. History must never become a way of shutting down criticism. You can remind people where PSG comes from without asking everyone to beam foolishly after every poor performance.

But this September 17 date is still useful: it restores a bit of perspective where the present so often takes up all the space. In forty years, Paris has gone from a first-round elimination in the European Cup to two straight Champions League titles. In the meantime, the competition changed, the club changed too, and our expectations kept pace at full speed.

Maybe even a little too fast sometimes. Because when you keep chasing what comes next, you almost end up forgetting to look at what just happened.

That is the real vertigo of this anniversary. It is not just about measuring the distance between Vitkovice and today. It is about seeing how much yesterday’s unthinkable has become today’s minimum acceptable standard. Paris no longer needs to win to surprise us; now it has to win so it does not disappoint us.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.