PLUS: The one sour note from an otherwise joyous night for Paris Saint-Germain
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By CRAIG HOPE
Published: 12:00 EDT, 1 June 2025 | Updated: 14:27 EDT, 1 June 2025
Desire Doue will not forget this night, and nor will we of the way he played, like the kid conducting the orchestra. He did, though, forget his man-of-the-match sculpture afterwards, and there was a reminder of the innocence of his youth. It is exciting to wonder what will become of the man.
It was long past midnight when the 19-year-old sat down in front of journalists at the Allianz Arena and opened by saying he had no words to describe how he felt - before finding plenty to articulate his joy. You cannot do what he does with his feet if the head is empty. He is a bright boy.
But then he came to leave and left behind on the stage - like a packed lunch on the school bus - his silver ball. A PSG official parented the situation and Doue quickly grabbed his prize, the same way he had grabbed this final and bent it to his will.
As he ambled to the door, there was something quite poetic about the sound of his studs subduing the clatter of keyboards - no matter what we write, his boots will do his talking. But it was also, you noted, the slowest he had moved all evening.
Everything Doue does is as if by instinctive twitch motion, rapid and snappy, hardwired for havoc. He was certainly too fast for Inter. It is one thing being quick, though, it is another having the speed of thought that allows physical superiority to impact.
Doue created the first goal with a fibre-optic slide to Achraf Hakimi, who turned into an empty net. He scored the second with a low blast, albeit deflected, and the third when he ran clear and did not break stride before rolling into the bottom corner.
Teenage sensation Desire Doue ran the show for PSG in their Champions League final victory
Doue put his boot down on Inter's throat from the start and kept it there until he was subbed
Some might record that Inter rolled over here - it was more that they were never allowed to stand up. Doue put his boot on their throat from the first minute and, when he was substituted in the 66th, it felt like an act of mercy.
But that was all he needed to make his first Champions League final his own. It will not be his last. He does not have to leave PSG to safeguard that likelihood, either. For amid the rush to crown the boy king, there should at least be a garland for Vitinha, the Portugal midfielder whose industry and imagination suffocated the Italians.
Could Doue want for a better support network than the midfield that warms his shadow? Vitinha, his compatriot Joao Neves and Spaniard Fabian Ruiz are PSG’s Iberian core. They are more heartland than peninsula.
Then there are Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembele, his sidekicks in attack, and a defence that made Inter’s offence, with 114 goals this season, look like helpless extras in Doue’s showreel.
That is why he does not have to look elsewhere for the stage that will take him to the one that awards the Ballon d’Or. He would not leave that prize behind, you suspect. Not when it is possible - and let us hope it is probable - that he and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal will soon embark on a decade-long duel for the game’s ultimate individual honour.
For it will not be long before the GOATs of Messi and Ronaldo go to pasture. We had feared the field they leave behind would stand empty, perhaps for another generation, but in Doue and Yamal there are two kids ready to rip up the grass and sow their own seeds of greatness.
To think, Wikipedia does not yet list Doue among the notable folk of Angers, where he was born to an Ivorian father and French mother. But that is part of the wonder - this is only just the beginning. Such a performance on such an occasion would often mark a journey’s end, not the sound of the starter’s gun.
He has just one cap for France. Indeed, this was only his 27th start for PSG. They signed him for an eye-wateringly modest £42m from Rennes last summer. There, he had scored only eight senior goals, including the one that made him the first player born in 2005 to score in a major European league.
Doue will likely rival Lamine Yamal in a decade-long battle for the game's highest individual prize
We feared that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi would leave behind and empty stage but in Doue and Yamal we have two stars capable of filling it
The sight of Doue torching the Allianz Arena will likely have been a sore one for Bayern Munich officials on Saturday night
At least 426 people were arrested for football-related violence and looting in the French capital as 'barbarians took to the streets' to watch it burn after PSG's Champions League win
Alleged 'savagery' broke out across the city before, during and after PSG beat Inter Milan in the Champions League Final in Munich
French firefighters extinguished street fires that had cropped up around the capital as police and PSG ultras continued to clash throughout the night
The club Doue rejected to join PSG was Bayern Munich, and the sight of him torching the Allianz Arena on Saturday night would have burnt their top brass in the stands. He belongs to PSG now, but so irresistible is he to watch, it feels like he already belongs to all of us. There are very few players who transcend tribalism - Doue does.
One sour note from this joyous occasion was the tribalism that showed its teeth - and fists - in the hours after the game. The U-Bahn station outside the Allianz was closed when I reached it after 1am.
Why? PSG’s fans were fighting on the platform - with each other! What over, you wondered? Which of their three trophies this season means the most? Which of their star players is the best? Or did someone say they wished Kylian Mbappe was still at the club?
Then came news of rioting in Paris, claiming two lives. The club have condemned the violence and France’s interior minister declared: ‘Barbarians have taken to the streets.’
It all felt so tragically mindless. Because right now, if you’re a follower of PSG, the only fight you need to consider is the one to conquer world football, to borrow Luis Enrique’s words.
The manager’s ambition is not a fanciful one, either. When you have Desire Doue, whose name translates perfectly and prophetically to Desired Gifted, you should be aiming to take all before you. Just remember… take the trophies with you.