PSG set a new benchmark in the Champions League, but can it stay at the top of European soccer?

MUNICH (AP) — Paris Saint-Germain's ascent to the top of European soccer is complete. Staying there is another matter entirely.

Saturday's Champions League triumph confirmed what many observers had suspected for some time - that PSG's moment had finally come.

Years of frustration in European club soccer's elite competition was blown away in one glorious and historic night in Munich.

Not only did PSG end its long wait for the trophy it prized most of all but it produced a statement performance and set a new benchmark for what it is to win the Champions League title.

The 5-0 rout of Inter Milan was officially the biggest winning margin of any final in the competition's 70-year history. And it could have been so much more emphatic had Bradley Barcola been clinical in front of goal, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia taken more than just one of his chances or Désiré Doué stayed on the field for longer than 67 minutes having scored two and set up another.

Star striker Ousmane Dembele didn't even get a goal to his name.

As impressive as PSG's victory was, it could have been even better. In other words, this is a team that is yet to reach its peak.

With an average age of 24.8 years old, PSG's starting lineup was packed with youth, which was in stark contrast to an Inter team with an average age of over 30.

At 31, captain Marquinhos was PSG's only starter over 30, while Doué was one of three teenagers to play, along with substitutes Senny Mayulu and Warren Zaire-Emery.

“We have a lot of young players - players who need to develop and I'm one of them,” Doué said. “We are always going to strive to get better.”

Keeping young teams together is easier said than done when Europe's biggest clubs come calling. That should not be a concern for Qatar-backed PSG, which is one of the richest clubs in the world and in recent years has focused on picking up the best young talent - from France in particular.

It seems there is little danger of PSG settling for just one Champions League title.

"We are ambitious, we are going to continue to conquer the football world,” a triumphant Luis Enrique said Saturday night after winning the trophy for the second time as a coach, 10 years after leading Barcelona to the trophy.

He sounds like a man who has his sights set on building a new era of dominance and quickly turned to adding to the treble of trophies already won this season.

Next up is the newly expanded Club World Cup.

“I think it is an incredible competition. Maybe not now in its first edition, but it will become an incredibly important competition to win,” he said of the tournament that kicks off in the United States this month. “We want to finish the season in style with the cherry on the cake.”

The 55-year-old Luis Enrique has established himself as one of the finest coaches in the world after winning a second Champions League title.

PSG has entrusted him to build a team in his image, rather than a selection of superstars and it has paid off.

He has turned PSG into a Champions League winner while playing arguably the most exciting soccer in Europe, with Barcelona possibly the only team to rival it in the entertainment stakes.

Yet while Barcelona was picked off by a wily Inter in the semifinals, the Italians were blown away by PSG.

Liverpool, which ran away with the Premier League title this season, was eliminated in the round of 16, while Manchester City and Arsenal were beaten as well.

Luis Enrique's brand of soccer has simply been too good for the rest in Europe, which is now playing catch up.

It is difficult to see where PSG needs to add to a squad with so much depth, but its rise to the top has come on the back of spending billions on some of the world's best players.

The era of Galactico signings is over for now, but the arrival of Kvaratskhelia from Napoli in January was evidence of president Nasser Al-Khelaifi's ongoing willingness to go big in the transfer market.

The Georgian forward sparked a dramatic turnaround in PSG's form in Europe, which saw it go from near elimination at the league phase to Champions League winner.

Manchester City might have thought its Champions League title in 2023 would spark a new era of success in Europe, but the opposite has been true and Pep Guardiola's team was eliminated in the playoffs this season.

The Champions League is notoriously difficult to defend, with Real Madrid the only team to retain the trophy in the modern era, having won three in a row from 2016-18. The difficulty is largely due to the wide spread of talent among Europe's elite.

PSG will come up against a Liverpool team that topped the league phase of this year's competition and is already making ambitious moves in the transfer market.

Madrid with a new coach in Xabi Alonso and signings such as Trent Alexander-Arnold should be a contender again. So too Barcelona after falling short in the semifinal.

City, meanwhile, is undergoing a rebuild of its own.

PSG, however, will likely start next season as the team to beat, with a bright young squad that finally knows how to get over the line.

James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

PSG's head coach Luis Enrique celebrates with the trophy after the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, Saturday, May 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

PSG's goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma embraces PSG's President Nasser Al-Khelaifi after the Champions League Final soccer match between Paris Saint Germain and Inter at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, Saturday May 31, 2025 . (Spada/LaPresse via AP)

PSG's Marquinhos celebrates during the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint Germain and Inter Milan, at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, Saturday, May 31, 2025. (Sven Hoppe/dpa via AP)

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.

The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “ fundamental disagreement ” remains with Trump over the island.

The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and "people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.

Here's a look at what Greenlanders have been saying:

Trump has dismissed Denmark’s defenses in Greenland, suggesting it’s “two dog sleds.”

By saying that, Trump is “undermining us as a people,” Mari Laursen told AP.

Laursen said she used to work on a fishing trawler but is now studying law. She approached AP to say she thought previous examples of cooperation between Greenlanders and Americans are “often overlooked when Trump talks about dog sleds.”

She said during World War II, Greenlandic hunters on their dog sleds worked in conjunction with the U.S. military to detect Nazi German forces on the island.

“The Arctic climate and environment is so different from maybe what they (Americans) are used to with the warships and helicopters and tanks. A dog sled is more efficient. It can go where no warship and helicopter can go,” Laursen said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed Russian and Chinese ships are swarming the seas around Greenland. Plenty of Greenlanders who spoke to AP dismissed that claim.

“I think he (Trump) should mind his own business,” said Lars Vintner, a heating engineer.

“What's he going to do with Greenland? He speaks of Russians and Chinese and everything in Greenlandic waters or in our country. We are only 57,000 people. The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market. And every summer we go sailing and we go hunting and I never saw Russian or Chinese ships here in Greenland,” he said.

Down at Nuuk's small harbor, Gerth Josefsen spoke to AP as he attached small fish as bait to his lines. He said, “I don't see them (the ships)” and said he had only seen “a Russian fishing boat ten years ago.”

Maya Martinsen, 21, a shop worker, told AP she doesn't believe Trump wants Greenland to enhance America's security.

“I know it’s not national security. I think it’s for the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched,” she said, suggesting the Americans are treating her home like a “business trade.”

She said she thought it was good that American, Greenlandic and Danish officials met in the White House Wednesday and said she believes that “the Danish and Greenlandic people are mostly on the same side,” despite some Greenlanders wanting independence.

“It is nerve-wrecking, that the Americans aren’t changing their mind,” she said, adding that she welcomed the news that Denmark and its allies would be sending troops to Greenland because “it’s important that the people we work closest with, that they send support.”

Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told AP that she hopes the U.S. got the message from Danish and Greenlandic officials to “back off.”

She said she didn't want to join the United States because in Greenland “there are laws and stuff, and health insurance .. .we can go to the doctors and nurses ... we don’t have to pay anything,” she said adding "I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”

In Greenland's parliament, Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament told AP that he has done multiple media interviews every day for the last two weeks.

When asked by AP what he would say to Trump and Vice President JD Vance if he had the chance, Berthelsen said:

“I would tell them, of course, that — as we’ve seen — a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats are not in favor of having such an aggressive rhetoric and talk about military intervention, invasion. So we would tell them to move beyond that and continue this diplomatic dialogue and making sure that the Greenlandic people are the ones who are at the very center of this conversation.”

“It is our country,” he said. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people.”

Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka contributed to this report.

FILE - A woman pushes a stroller with her children in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

Military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament poses for photo at his office in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fisherman Gerth Josefsen prepares fishing lines at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A woman walks on a street past a Greenlandic national flag in Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)