Our Champions League group of the season: a teen feeling

Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris Saint-Germain)

He does have his weaknesses, such as the occasional panic under the crossed ball, however this was the season the Italian recovered his title as the world’s best goalkeeper. PSG’s path to glory saw him beat Ederson, Alisson, and Emi Martínez before besting Yann Sommer in the last. Donnarumma made a series of conserves just he can make, throwing that substantial, rangy frame to its complete expanse while playing behind a backline constructed to attack instead of focus on defence.Defenders Achraf Hakimi

(PSG)If this is the age of full-back being

the most multipurpose player in football, then Hakimi is finest in class. The Moroccan matched defensive rigour with attacking instincts that saw him score 4 goals and supply 5 assists in PSG’s run, consisting of the opening strike of the final. His finalizing in 2021 was most likely the very first foundation of the team that reigned supreme in 2025. Ad Related: Luis Enrique protects status as one of the all-time greats with PSG victory|David Hytner Willian Pacho (PSG )Marquinhos is the long-serving veteran of the champs, but his partner, Pacho, signed from Eintracht Frankfurt last year for EUR45m, has actually finished the Parisians ‘backline. He ended up being the very first Ecuadorian to raise the prize after his dominant screen in Munich blunted Inter’s Lautaro Martínez and Marcus Thuram. Playing all 17 matches and logging more minutes than any other player with 1,542, Pacho likewise won the ball back much more than any player: 124 times.Alessandro Bastoni (Inter )Munich was a living nightmare for Inter defenders. They likewise yielded 6 across the two legs in their semi-final classic with Barcelona.

But to concentrate on those matches is to forget the supremacy the Inter defence enjoyed in the prolonged group stage, where they yielded simply a single goal in eight matches. Till the semis and final, Bastoni, an Italian defender of the traditional design, had actually marshalled a three-man defence carrying out far better in Europe than in Serie A, however still ended a campaign of which he can be happy in tears.Advertisement Nuno Mendes( PSG )Mirroring Hakimi’s command of his flank in attack and defense, Mendes was tasked in the final with stopping the runs of Inter’s Denzel Dumfries, one of the competition’s most reliable players this season. The Dutchman wound up chasing after

Mendes’s shadow. That followed a season where the Portuguese player, just 22 years old, scored 4 Champions League objectives and ravaged opponents, both opponents and defenders, with his athleticism. Mohamed Salah has seldom been kept so quiet.Midfielders João Neves (PSG)PSG’s title-winning group did not come low-cost however they have actually invested well, with a summer season deal worth EUR70m landing Neves, one of the most desired young midfielders in Europe. Small however combative, Neves now stars in the very best midfield in Europe in combination with Vitinha and Fabián Ruiz. He had actually been a sluggish burn through his very first season. When PSG were playing to stay alive in the group phase, Neves was the match-winner versus Manchester City, Seven deals with, all successful, 7 shots, including a goal, he began to embody a group battling like wild canines to win the ball back.Advertisement Related: Viva Vitinha: how PSG’s deep conductor showed Lionel Messi incorrect|Barney Ronay Declan Rice(Toolbox)English clubs had a chastening Champions League season, mainly because of PSG, and Toolbox were the semi-final victims. Regardless of Mikel Arteta’s protestations, the Gunners were well beaten however this was the

club’s finest run in the competition in more than a years. At the fulcrum was Rice, who is developing into a midfielder who can run a game, as he did most clearly versus Genuine Madrid– a two-legged efficiency Gunners fans will gladly fall back on as something to cherish after their team’s exit. Rice generally saved his marauding best for Europe.Pedri(Barcelona)If the contemporary PSG are a hyper-realised, updated version of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona group, the club he long left shown to be this season’s entertainers. Hansi Flick is football’s fantastic bettor, his group a high-line, high wire act. In the middle of the morass is Pedri, a midfielder of balance, imagination and now experience. Thankfully, he is recovered from the injury issues that his 75-game 2020 triggered and fills the mould Andrés Iniesta once did, never appearing like losing the ball, forever unsafe to the opposition.Forwards Ousmane Dembélé (PSG)A mark of Luis Enrique’s quality as a coach is that he made an efficient, consistent player out of one of the game’s fantastic enigmas. PSG played mainly without a centre-forward however it was Dembélé who led the line, cutting in from flanks, operating as a false No 9, interchanging with his fellow wingers, his motion creating area and angles to work with.Advertisement Related: PSG 2.0 have potential to dominate however young stars might be drawn away|Nick Ames Khvicha Kvaratskhelia( PSG) There might be little coincidence that when the Georgian was bought from Naples in January, PSG’s status as a huge struggling to make the knockout stages was shedded as they instead became the most decisive champs in European Cup history. The very best attacking player in Serie A, a maverick skill that looks like both a throwback and the future proved a revelation in damaging defences. The English teams in specific had problem with him, and when he was going however on goal in Munich, he was able to display his party-trick finish, at the near post.Lamine Yamal (Barcelona )The best group did not have the very best player, and that’s how it’s expected to work. When Barcelona were torching opposition defences, winning games from difficult positions, it appeared as if Lamine Yamal would win the Champions League at 17. He will just need to do it at 18. European defences had no response to his speed and quality of completing. Those slaloming runs and thunderbolt finishes versus Benfica and Barcelona could be seen as starts to greatness if he were not already great.Substitutes Emi Martínez came up big in Aston Villa’s extremely satisfying go to the last eight. Denzel Dumfries had five goal involvements in the Inter v Barcelona semi-final. Raphinha and Serhou Guirassy were joint-top for goals, with the Brazilian outstanding for Barcelona, the Guinean a ray of light for a faded Dortmund group. Désiré Doué, scoring 2 objectives in the last, finished PSG’s thrilling assaulting trio.