Luis Enrique looks untroubled by Paris Saint-Germain sitting sixth in Ligue 1.
“Do you want to bet against us?” the 56-year-old asks in a BBC Sport feature by Guillem Balague published on Tuesday.
Three wins, two draws and one defeat from six matches are, in Luis Enrique’s reading, part of a design rather than a problem. The reigning European champions are retooled for a very specific race: back-to-back Champions League wins over Inter in 2025 and Arsenal in 2026, and a third in a row the obvious target.
The club has already backed the direction for the long haul. In September, PSG extended Luis Enrique’s contract through 2030, tying five senior players to new long-term deals on the same day: Joao Neves, Fabian Ruiz, Willian Pacho, Lucas Beraldo and Senny Mayulu. President Nasser Al-Khelaifi called the group “the present and the future of our club’s project”.
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The coach’s own reaction was unusually sentimental.
“It is the first time in my career, and I am an old coach, in which I have stayed more than three years in the same club. I am more motivated now than I was in my first year here, which is bizarre for me,” Luis Enrique said.
The method, not the players
The BBC piece describes a PSG built around a system rather than any one name. Assistant Joaquin Valdes has been with Luis Enrique since their Barcelona B days, and Rafel Pol handles the strategic work as second in command. Training has barely changed since the coach’s arrival: his staff run most of it, he watches from an elevated crane for perspective, and long video reviews have been replaced by pitchside screens.
Two European finals in a row have not shifted the approach. The focus for 2026-27, Balague writes, is on being fresher than everyone else when the biggest matches come around.
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Ligue 1 as a laboratory
The slow domestic start is a feature of that plan. Ousmane Dembele, Lucas Digne and other senior players have been pulled out against weaker opponents, with eight non-starters taking the pitch against Le Mans last week. The idea is that Dembele and the rest of the regular starters arrive rested at the Etihad on Wednesday for a Champions League league-phase meeting with Manchester City.
The coach has not softened the message in public, either. Ahead of the Le Mans match, he told reporters PSG wanted to climb the table.
“That’s why we’re going to go for the three points.”
Depth was also engineered through the market. Gonzalo Ramos, Bradley Barcola, sold to Liverpool for a reported £123m, and Lee Kang-in all left in part because they could not get the minutes they wanted. Ferran Torres, who scored Spain’s World Cup winner, and Mika Godts arrived as hungrier replacements. Torres has already added seven goals in France.
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An academy wired into the first team
The long-term project has a physical home. PSG opened a €350m campus in November 2024 that brings the first team, academies and a school onto one site. Training centre director Yohan Cabaye works with sporting director Luis Campos and deputy director of professional football Olivier Gagne to make sure the youngest players learn the same football as the senior squad. Four of them, Warren Zaire-Emery, Senny Mayulu, Quentin Ndjantou and Ibrahim Mbaye, featured in last season’s Champions League run.
Kick-off at the Etihad is at 8pm local time, with Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique’s former Barcelona team-mate, in the opposing dugout.
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