Opinion: two Champions Leagues on, PSG are still hungry | OneFootball

Two consecutive Champions Leagues might make you want to take a breather. Apparently, not at Paris Saint-Germain. On the Portugal Football Summit Podcast, Luis Campos (62) said he was already thinking about a third title as soon as the final won in Budapest was over. It may sound greedy. Above all, it’s a powerful sign of what PSG has become.

Two UCL titles, and still something more to chase

There’s a quote from Campos that sums up the situation quite well in the end: “the hunger is still there”. It might sound like a standard executive cliché. But after two straight Champions League titles, it takes on a very different meaning.

Because the real risk, after finally reaching the summit, was perhaps this: feeling like you’ve made it.

PSG chased this Champions League for so long that it was fair to wonder what would happen once the obsession had finally been satisfied. The answer is pretty simple: they won a second one. And a few months later, their sporting advisor is already saying he’s thinking about a third.

Of course, that guarantees absolutely nothing. Thankfully, too—otherwise we could just skip straight to spring. But this ability not to treat the last two seasons as the finish line is probably one of the most interesting signs of the change in Paris.

For a long time, PSG’s main goal was simply to reach the level of Europe’s biggest clubs. Today, the challenge is different: staying at that level. And to do that, you have to avoid admiring too much what you’ve just accomplished.

The luxury of being able to think about the next one

That’s also what makes Campos’s comments quite striking when you think back on PSG’s European journey. For years, Paris just wanted to win one. Every spring brought its share of improbable scenarios, disappointments, and grand theories about what was stopping the club from taking the final step.

Now, people are calmly talking about winning three in a row. That change really has to be appreciated. This PSG is no longer searching for the night that will finally validate its project. It now has to deal with an almost opposite situation: how do you keep moving forward when you’ve just lived through two seasons the club would probably have signed up for with its eyes closed just a few years ago?

That’s where Luis Enrique’s (56) work becomes especially interesting. It’s no longer just about building a team capable of winning. It’s about stopping a team that has already won a lot from thinking, even unconsciously, that it already knows how to win.

And on that point, hearing Campos immediately talk about what comes next is rather reassuring. He isn’t erasing what has been achieved. He is simply refusing to make it a full stop.

Wanting a third doesn’t make it normal

Even so, there is still a line that must not be crossed. The fact that PSG is thinking about a third Champions League is excellent news. If all of us start treating it as something they simply have to win, that would be much less so.

Paris is now expected, studied, and judged by the standards reserved for Europe’s best teams. That is the natural price of its results. But a season does not become a failure just because it does not systematically end with the big-eared trophy.

That may be the strange balance PSG now has to find. Internally, act as if two Champions Leagues are not enough. Externally, never forget how difficult it already is to win even one. The hunger Campos talks about is probably one of the best possible pieces of news for Paris. As long as they keep that appetite without ending up believing the feast has become mandatory.

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