PSG cruise to Club World Cup final after Ruiz and Dembélé stun Real Madrid
PSG vs Real Madrid
There was a moment towards the end of Kylian Mbappé’s final season in France when Luis Enrique called him into his office and explained, with the kind of conviction that only a manager of his pedigree could muster, that if they did things his way, Paris Saint-Germain could become an “absolute machine.” It was a bold promise, one that carried the weight of ambition and the burden of expectation, given PSG’s history of near-misses in European competitions. Enrique, a man who had already sculpted a treble-winning Barcelona side, spoke with the clarity of someone who had seen the blueprint for greatness and knew how to execute it. For Mbappé, who had spent years carrying the hopes of a club and a city, the words were both a challenge and a prophecy. They lingered in his mind as he navigated the emotional turbulence of his departure from Paris, trading the familiarity of the Parc des Princes for the storied weight of Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu. Little did he know that those words would come back to haunt him, not as a distant memory but as a visceral reality, played out on a global stage in a match that would expose the gap between his past and his present.A little over a year later, on the day his first season at Real Madrid came to an end against his former club, the striker saw for himself, up close and painful, just how right his former coach had been. The team that went to Munich and put five past Inter, the biggest winning margin in a European Cup final, came to New York and scored four against the game’s greatest aristocrats to take them to the final of the Club World Cup against Chelsea. The MetLife Stadium, a sprawling cathedral of American sport, became the stage for a masterclass in modern football, where PSG’s relentless machinery dismantled Real Madrid with a precision that bordered on surgical. For Mbappé, who had dreamed of lifting trophies in Madrid’s white, the defeat was more than a loss—it was a public reckoning, a reminder of the team he had left behind and the one he had yet to fully integrate into. The scoreline told only part of the story: three goals inside the first half-hour, two from Fabián Ruiz’s cultured left foot and another from the irrepressible Ousmane Dembélé, had already sealed Madrid’s fate. The fourth, a late flourish from Gonçalo Ramos in the 87th minute, was less a necessity than a statement, its ease underscoring the chasm between the two sides. PSG didn’t just win; they dominated, their performance a symphony of aggression, intelligence, and inevitability.If PSG had not scored more, it was because they did not need to. The game was decided long before the final whistle, the outcome etched into the early exchanges when PSG’s intensity overwhelmed Madrid’s fragile structure. Three goals in 30 minutes were not the product of luck but of a system that had been honed to perfection under Enrique’s meticulous guidance. Ruiz’s opener came after just six minutes, a goal that felt like the culmination of a sequence that had already exposed Madrid’s vulnerabilities. By that point, PSG had created four clear chances, each one a warning shot that Madrid failed to heed. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the Georgian winger whose flair had become a cornerstone of Enrique’s attack, struck the side-netting in the opening moments, a near-miss that set the tone for what was to come. Then Thibaut Courtois, Madrid’s towering goalkeeper, produced two breathtaking saves, his outstretched limbs defying physics to keep his team in the game. For a fleeting moment, it seemed as though this might be another of those nights when Courtois, the last line of resistance, would stand firm against an onslaught, absorbing pressure like a fortress under siege. But even he, a goalkeeper who had made a career of defying the odds, could not hold back the tide forever. PSG’s pressure was too relentless, their execution too precise, their hunger too insatiable.Madrid’s collapse was not just a matter of individual errors, though those were plentiful and glaring. It began with a catastrophic lapse from Raúl Asencio, the young centre-back whose inexperience was laid bare in the buildup to the first goal. A routine control slipped away from him, a moment of hesitation that PSG pounced on with predatory instinct. Dembélé, a blur of blue, was upon him in an instant, dispossessing him with the ease of a seasoned pickpocket. The ball was stolen right in front of goal, and Courtois, desperate to avert disaster, lunged at Dembélé, committing what could have been a penalty and perhaps a red card had Ruiz not been there to sidefoot the ball into an empty net. The goal was a microcosm of PSG’s performance: opportunistic, ruthless, and executed with a clarity that left no room for error. Three minutes later, it was Antonio Rüdiger’s turn to falter, his swipe at a loose ball missing entirely as Dembélé, again, capitalized with devastating speed. Racing through, he guided the ball past Courtois with a composure that belied the stakes of the moment. By the ninth minute, the game was effectively over—not just because of the two-goal deficit but because of the overwhelming sense that Madrid were outclassed, outworked, and outthought.Under a new manager in Xabi Alonso, Real Madrid’s time may come, but this was not their night. The absences of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dean Huijsen, two key components of their defensive structure, did not help, nor did the tactical reshuffle prompted by Mbappé’s return to the starting lineup. Alonso, a cerebral coach whose playing career was defined by control and composure, cut a frustrated figure on the sidelines, his team’s errors exposing a lack of cohesion that he had yet to fully address. He would later reflect on the mistakes that cost them—Asencio’s lapse, Rüdiger’s misjudgment, the failure to adapt to PSG’s high press—but the truth ran deeper than individual failings. This was a systemic defeat, a dismantling orchestrated by a PSG side that had evolved into the “absolute machine” Enrique had promised. The intensity of Vitinha, Ruiz, and João Neves in midfield was suffocating, closing gaps as quickly as PSG’s front three—Mbappé’s former teammates—opened them. Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes, nominally full-backs, were anything but defensive, their marauding runs down the flanks stretching Madrid’s defense to breaking point. To call them full-backs felt inadequate; they were attacking forces, their energy and precision emblematic of a team that operated with a singular purpose.This is some machine, all right. Unstoppable, the sense of superiority just overwhelming from start to … well, not finish exactly, if only because the real finish came so early. By the time Ruiz’s second goal made it 3-0, the MetLife Stadium had become a theater of PSG’s dominance, the 80,000-strong crowd—many of whom had come to see Mbappé in his new colors—left in stunned silence. For Mbappé himself, the match was a personal crucible. Facing his former club, the one he had led to domestic glory but never to the Champions League triumph they craved, he was a shadow of the player who had once terrorized defenses across Europe. Isolated on the wing, starved of service, and pressed relentlessly by Mendes, he cut a forlorn figure, his every touch scrutinized by a crowd that expected miracles. The contrast between his struggles and PSG’s fluidity was stark, a reminder of the machine he had left behind and the one he had yet to fully join.PSG’s performance was not just a victory but a statement of intent. This was a team that had moved beyond the reliance on individual brilliance that had defined their Mbappé era. Under Enrique, they had become a collective, a unit where every player knew their role and executed it with devastating efficiency. The fourth goal, scored by Ramos, was almost poetic in its simplicity—a late flourish that underlined PSG’s control. As the ball hit the net, the ease of the finish spoke volumes: this was a team that could score at will, a machine that hummed with purpose and precision. For Madrid, the defeat was a humbling lesson, a reminder that even the greatest clubs can be brought to their knees by a team that has found its moment. For PSG, it was the culmination of Enrique’s vision, a step toward the global dominance they had long chased. As the final whistle blew, the message was clear: this was their time, and no one—not even the aristocrats of Real Madrid—could stand in their way.
