The French side imploding in Europe has become something of an annual tradition, but which of their shocking continental losses was the worst?
Paris Saint-Germain have won almost everything possible under the ownership of Qatari Sports Investments. Since they bought the club in 2011, they have bagged 10 Ligue 1 titles and six Coupes de France. But no matter how much money the French club invests, they can never seem to win the Champions League.
Over the past 13 years, the PSG squad became more tailored to the cause. When they weren’t good enough going forward, they signed Kylian Mbappe and Neymar. When they weren’t solid defensively, they hired the pragmatic Thomas Tuchel. And then, two years later, for good measure, they brought in the best player of all time, Lionel Messi.
When that didn’t work out, they stripped it down to just Mbappe and a young supporting cast, only to suffer the same fate, as they crashed out to Borussia Dortmund in the 2024 semi-finals. With Mbappe set to leave this summer, the curtain will come down on the superstar era at Parc des Princes, but it is one that will be defined by their failures in Europe.
Over the years, they’ve developed something of a penchant for failing in the most dramatic way possible. But which of the losses were hardest to swallow? GOAL ranks PSG’s worst Champions League blunders of the QSI era…
7 Undone by De Bruyne (2016)
Kevin De Bruyne is so intrinsically connected with the Pep Guardiola era at Manchester City that it’s easy to forget the Belgium international was strutting his stuff at the Etihad Stadium for a full year before the Catalan coach arrived.
De Bruyne’s first season in Manchester, though, wasn’t his best. The midfielder picked up an injury, and only made 25 appearances as City finished fourth in the Premier League.
Still, was able to enjoy his first big moment as a City player in the Champions League against PSG. With the two sides locked at 2-2 on aggregate, De Bruyne scored a 76th-minute winner to send City to the semi-finals.
Though City deserved the win in the end, PSG were left pondering what might have been. Zlatan Ibrahimovic missed a penalty 14 minutes into the tie, while they surrendered a 2-1 lead at Parc des Princes when Fernandinho equalised.
That then laid the foundation for De Bruyne to become the hero at the Etihad as Laurent Blanc’s side slipped out of the competition.
6 Woodwork party against Dortmund (2024)
How unlucky can you get? The Parisians didn’t exactly play badly across the two legs of their 2024 semi-final with Borussia Dortmund, but despite dominating play for long stretches, the Parisians were poor in key areas.
Both Dortmund goals across the tie – an eventual 2-0 aggregate loss – were inarguably avoidable. The first was the result of a long-ball over the top for an unmarked Niclas Fullkrug to run on to, while the second came from a well-orchestrated corner routine that was headed home by Mats Hummels.
At the other end, PSG were even worse. The Parisians tallied 44 shots across the two legs, hit the woodwork six times, and record an xG total in excess of five – but didn’t find the net once. After the second-leg defeat, Luis Enrique dubbed his team “unlucky”. He may be right, but given Dortmund were on their way to a fifth-placed finish in the Bundesliga and had no superstars within their ranks, these were games the Parisians really should have won with some ease.
5 Suarez makes Luiz look silly (2015)
It was not the first time that a striker made David Luiz look silly. But Luis Suarez made sure to do it twice.
Suarez ran riot at the Parc de Princes when Barcelona visited in 2015, bagging a brace and nutmegging Luiz twice to cap off a classic performance from the MSN frontline.
PSG were admittedly short of their best on the night, and very few teams could even hope to compete with a Barca team that went onto lift the European Cup that year.
There was, though, something cruel about their exit, as Luiz was only brought on in the first leg due to an injury picked up by Thiago Silva early in the tie.
Still, to lose 3-1 at home and 5-1 on aggregate was not a good look for a team who were keen to start making their mark on the European scene.
4 Mourinho magic at the Bridge (2014)
This was supposed to be PSG’s big moment, the fixture where they announced themselves on the European stage.
They weren’t quite the star-studded side that they are now, but there was still quality all over the pitch. A Thiago Motta-Marco Verratti-Blaise Matuidi midfield trio was frightening, while an in-form Edinson Cavani led the line. Add in the pace of Lucas Moura and Ezequiel Lavezzi on either wing, and the Parisians were a team going places in 2014.
They proved as such when they hosted Chelsea in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final, beating the Blues relatively handily as Javier Pastore’s late goal handed them what appeared to be a near-insurmountable 3-1 lead.
But then, Jose Mourinho happened.
The Portuguese manager got a signature knockout-stage performance out of his players, as Andre Schurrle gave the home side hope in the first half at Stamford Bridge before Demba Ba popped up with four minutes to go to seal an away goals victory and send west London wild.
The late disappointment in Europe is something PSG fans have become accustomed to ever since.
3 Rashford’s penalty silences Paris (2019)
It was certainly a bit of an unfortunate handball from Presnel Kimpembe, but one that will live in PSG infamy for a long time.
Diogo Dalot’s speculative shot from 25 yards out summed up Manchester United’s desperation as the second leg of their last-16 tie entered stoppage time, and though it was the kind of blocked strike that never really seemed likely to go in, in the early days of VAR, any hint of handball in the box meant a spot-kick.
Marcus Rashford, who hadn’t scored a goal in a month, smashed home the penalty in the 94th minute to seal a 3-1 win at Parc des Princes that was enough for United to win on away goals after PSG had put in an excellent performance to win 2-0 at Old Trafford a few weeks earlier.
PSG didn’t play particularly badly in the second leg, but a slow start to the game proved costly in the end as it left the door open for a United side, who were being coached by caretaker manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer dressed in a bib on the sidelines, to come crashing through.
2 Benzema takes advantage of Bernabeu collapse (2022)
It may not rank as the most embarrassing European exit in PSG’s recent history, but their capitulation against Real Madrid in 2022 might be far more psychologically damaging to the current squad.
Here was a PSG team that was theoretically the best the club has ever season. Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe were all on the pitch, while Mauricio Pochettino’s defence were regarded as being pretty sturdy.
All it took was one mistake.
With PSG holding a 2-0 aggregate lead in their last-16 tie after Mbappe had scored late in the first half at Santiago Bernabeu, Gianluigi Donnarumma’s moment of hesitation inside his own six-yard box allowed Karim Benzema to steal in and net an easy finish from close range.
The dye was cast, and Benzema added two more goals in the next 15 minutes, overturning what appeared to be an insurmountable lead in the blink of an eye.
Benzema went onto win the Ballon d’Or as Madrid lifted another European Cup. Some in Paris, meanwhile, are still in disbelief as to how they managed to throw this one away.
1 La Remontada (2017)
A comeback so famous that it has its own Wikipedia page.
There are two ways of looking at Barcelona’s famous win over PSG in the Champions League’s last 16 in 2017. It is either the best comeback in European football history, or the biggest collapse.
Barca may have been at the height of their powers, with Messi, Suarez and Neymar all firing in equal measure. But letting a 4-0 lead crumble takes a special kind of disintegration.
Although the Blaugrana had had got themselves back into the tie with three goals inside the first 50 minutes, it seemed like it had been put out of their reach when Edinson Cavani put PSG 5-3 ahead on aggregate with 28 minutes remaining.
That away goal meant that Barca needed to score a further three times, and as the clock ticked into the 88th minute, that felt like an impossibility.
But after Neymar buried a free-kick with two minutes to go, he stepped up again to convert a penalty moments later before Sergi Roberto’s stoppage-time strike sent Catalunya into raptures.
PSG may have had a case when it came to questioning some of the refereeing decisions that were made that night, but there is still no way they should have thrown away the advantage they had.
It will take something truly momentous to ever surpass La Remontada as the worst Champions League exit in PSG history.