Budapest was barely over when the next target went up
There is a photograph Luis Campos keeps coming back to. Final whistle, Budapest, confetti still in the air, and the Paris Saint-Germain sporting director is leaning in to tell somebody what comes next. Not celebrating. Briefing.
He told the story himself on the Portugal Football Summit Podcast, sitting across from Pedro Pinto. “These are unforgettable moments for everyone at the club. I remember a picture of myself at the end of the match in Budapest, where I was already passing on the message and thinking that after the back to back, we had to be thinking straight away about the back to back to back.” Two European Cups in two seasons. Campos wants a third, and he is not pretending otherwise.
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Name by name, he says the hunger has not gone
Ask a sporting director whether success has softened his squad and you usually get a platitude. Campos went through the roster instead. “I hope and I feel that the hunger is still there. The desire to work together and put the team first is still very much alive at the club.”
Joao Neves and Vitinha, both of whom he still expects to get better. Hakimi, whose appetite has not dipped an inch. Marquinhos, “our great captain”. Ousmane Dembele, still hungry. Luis Enrique earned his own passage, an “incredible evolution” in the Portuguese executive’s words. So did Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the “extraordinary president” who handed him the keys and stayed out of the way. “He trusted me, he let me work.”
Then the hedge. “If we do not win, we will be contenders.” Ambition, minus the promise.
Nobody has done it since Zidane’s Madrid
The last club to win three European Cups on the bounce was Real Madrid, in 2016, 2017 and 2018. That is the company Paris are asking to join, and in the modern format nobody else has got near it.
Last season the Parisians went through Bayern Munich in the semi-finals on their way to the trophy. The Germans have not forgotten. They are already planning around 2028 and a final scheduled for the Allianz Arena, their own ground, which tends to concentrate the mind.
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