PSG's redemptive triumph is vindication for the Champions League's brave new format

Last Saturday night, an imperious Paris St Germain team conjured up the greatest night in the club's long, proud history, effortlessly sweeping aside Inter Milan with a five goal demolition that made the French side European champions for the first time. Had they displayed the same form the previous season, they may well have been out of Europe by Christmas. This was a triumph that spoke not just of a new team etching its name onto European football's greatest prize, but a new way of winning it...

5 games in, PSG's 2024-25 Champions League campaign was in crisis. A narrow 1-0 defeat at Bayern Munich may not seem that disastrous a result in isolation, but this 26th November loss left the Parisians with just 1 win (an unconvincing 1-0 home success over tournament debutants Girona in their opening match) and 1 draw to show from their opening quintet of games. In a traditional 4 team group stage, that form might have proved fatal. Thankfully for Luis Enrique's charges, there were now three more games to improve on their meagre 4 point total, rather than just one.

A revitalised PSG won them all. A commanding 3-0 success away at Salzburg on December 10th, the gameweek where the old group stage would have wrapped up, was followed by a swashbuckling 4-2 victory over Man City at the Parc De Princes on 22nd January and a 4-1 humbling of Stuttgart in front of a hostile crowd a week later. This late surge saw PSG land 15th place in UEFA's new look combined group table, just 2 points ahead of eliminated Dinamo Zagreb in 25th. A scintillating play-off round showing brought further belief to an emerging outfit, thrashing fellow French side Brest 10-0 on aggregate.

From here, PSG never looked back. Even the blow of being drawn against group phase winners Liverpool in their Last 16 clash, and seeing their 5 game winning streak in the competition crushed courtesy of Harvey Elliott's late strike in a 1-0 first leg home defeat, couldn't throw them off course. The increasingly confident Parisians responded at Anfield, reversing the first leg scoreline with an early Ousmane Dembele goal and triumphing on penalties. PSG then did the full English, recording further aggregate victories over Aston Villa and Arsenal to make the showpiece in Munich, where a hapless Inter Milan were mowed down in style.

In just 6 months, PSG have gone from a forlorn outfit looking as if they were suffering a post-Galactico era hangover to continental champions and Europe's most feared team. It's been a remarkable turnaround for a young, hungry group, and one that wouldn't have been possible without UEFA's sweeping changes to its own flagship competition, which have been on the cards long before they came into force at the start of this campaign...

When European football's governing body approved an expansion of their 3 main club tournaments in May 2022 (the Europa and Europa Conference leagues undergoing similar reboots), the Champions League didn't have the feel of a format that required changing. The globe's most watched club football competition, and in turn the most lucrative, if any tournament seemed immune to change at the time, it was UEFA's golden child. That golden child, however, is also a cash cow, and where UEFA are concerned there's rarely such a thing as too much milking...

Fans, players and clubs alike did at least have a 2 year gap between approval & implementation to get used to this bold new vision for European club football's premier competition. This vision involved a series of fairly radical changes, which included;

• Increasing the number of teams in the Champions League from 32 to 36

• Remodelling the traditional group stage (8 groups of 4 teams) into an unfamiliar 'Swiss model' initial league phase. Here, teams would play 8 matches instead of 6, all against different opponents, with the aim of finishing in the top 8 of a combined league table

• Adding a new play-off round to whittle the middle 16 teams down to 8 to then face the league stage's top 8 in the Last 16

  
  

Confusing? Not at all...

UEFA, in their eternal wisdom, clearly felt that baffling an entire continent's worth of stakeholders was a fair price to pay for even more football...

The jury was still very much out when the first ball of this newly revamped Champions League was kicked in anger last September. A peculiar, palpable mixture of curiosity, excitement and scepticism abounded as all those concerned wondered what was about to unfold. It didn't take much imagination to foresee the entire show descending into farce or inciting severe backlash, especially in the age of VAR. But, surprisingly, the new format more than held its own against its many critics.

The revamped group stage was filled with several exciting, goal laden clashes, a larger proportion than before pitting together the so-called 'top teams'. Shock stories were in ample supply, with the likes of Brest, Lille and Aston Villa progressing, whilst the two most recent champions, Real Madrid and Man City, both floundered and had to settle for a play-off against each other, which Los Blancos won. Several qualification spots were only decided in a thrilling final matchweek in January, whilst the new play-off round also entertained before normal proceedings resumed in the Last 16.

Of course, things weren't all perfect, and this re-imagined competition still faces several heavy questions over its scale, format and purpose. Why did the previous group stage, which took 96 matches to eliminate 16 of 32 teams, need to be replaced by a league phase that features 144 clashes to reduce 8 teams from 36? How can increased impact on player welfare, fan travel and domestic fixtures be justified? Is this new format merely a stepping stone towards UEFA's own 'Super League'?

These questions will almost inevitably come to the fore as this new tournament structure matures in the seasons ahead, but as far as the current campaign is concerned, UEFA have been blessed with the ideal champions to sing the merits of their bold future vision. Paris St Germain are a team whose stunning late season renaissance would have come too late to make an impact under the Champions League's old model, whereas this new structure allowed them the extra time needed to click into gear and mount a charge to glory from the brink of elimination.

Such a story, or the possibility of one, can only increase the depth and drama of a model that has already promised much and provided plenty of entertainment. And for all of the new Champions League's more questionable elements, surely that's not a bad thing?