The Japan Times - PSG have achieved 'our ultimate goal', says Luis Enrique

Since their Qatari takeover in 2011, PSG have won 11 of the past 13 French titles but the grand prize for which the club had spent big had always eluded them.

On Saturday, PSG sliced Inter to pieces at the Allianz Arena to emphatically put that right.

Luis Enrique, who won the Champions League at the helm of Barcelona in Berlin in 2015, said he had his sights set on the title ever since he took over in the French capital in 2023.

"On my first day at the PSG campus, my French was even worse than it is today. But I said the ultimate goal for me as a coach was to fill the trophy cabinet," the Spaniard said.

"The only trophy missing was Champions League. And we've ticked that box. We were ambitious, and we did it.

"It's in the bag and it's coming home with us tomorrow."

The manager singled out forward Ousmane Dembele for special praise, calling him "incredible" and saying "he deserves to win the Ballon d'Or."

The coach paid tribute to his daughter Xana, who passed away from cancer in 2019 aged nine.

After the full-time whistle, the French fans unfurled a banner depicting father and daughter planting a PSG flag into the ground, just as the two had done with a Barcelona flag in Berlin a decade earlier.

"It was emotional. It's beautiful that the supporters thought about me and my family. But I don't need to win the Champions League or even a game to think about my daughter," Luis Enrique said.

"She's always with me. She's supporting me, and our family, and I feel her presence."

S.Fujimoto--JT