Sporting CP v Paris Saint-Germain

Sporting CP v Paris Saint-Germain
Tuesday January 20th, 2026
Estádio José Alvalade
Champions League Matchday 7

The warm up

The Champions League returns with arguably the lions biggest test of group fixtures as they play host to the current European Champions and French title winners PSG. Since the last round of the competition, the Ligue 1 Champions have won just the two trophies. First against Flamengo in the FIFA Intercontinental Cup beating the Brazilians on penalties. Secondly in the French equivalent of the Supertaça as they scored deep into additional time against Marseille to make the game 2-2 before going on lift the trophy after penalties. So then - Champions League Winners, Ligue 1 Champions, FIFA Intercontinental Cup Winners and Trophée Des Champions Winners. Anything else for Sporting to worry about? How about UEFA Super Cup winners after their win on penalties over Spurs in the UEFA Super Cup in August. That followed them finishing Runners up in the FIFA Club World Cup Final to Chelsea, which had followed them lifting the Coupe de France in May to complete the domestic double beating Reims 3-0. Oh and Ousmane Dembélé was voted Men’s Ballon D’or for 2025. Who says it doesn’t pay to have a nation state in charge of your club? Incredibly (at the time of writing at least) PSG are not top of Ligue 1 as they sit behind Lens in second place, though it wouldn’t surprise me to learn by the time the two sides kick off next week that they are back on top. I’m sure few fans in France would expect Lens who currently sit in first place to go on and win the league title in May but you never know. All in all, I think it’s safe to say that PSG have had a decent run of it of late.

In June of 2011 Tamim bin Hamas Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, purchased a 70% stake in the Parisians through the state-run shareholding investment group Qatar Sports Investments, more commonly known as QSI. In the March of the next year they became the club’s sole shareholders. Latterly that figure has reduced to an 87.5% holding with Arctos Partners holding the remaining 12.5% after the investment firm bought a stake holding in December 2023. In October 2022 they purchased a 22% stake in Portuguese top flight club Sporting Braga and you imagine that long term they will seek to replicate the multi-club models employed by the current owners of Manchester City as an example. 

If I tell you that the Parisians are France's most decorated club you'd be forgiven for thinking they'd been founded in the early part of the 20th century and not as it happens in 1970. Two clubs merged to form a new entity, Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain. You get no bonus points for figuring how the club came up with the new name. However the marriage wasn't to last and ironically later this evening as I write PSG play host to Paris FC in the Coupe de France. The split couldn't have been totally acrimonious given the club's two stadia are separated by just 44 metres. If Paris FC ever regretted their decision to split they can now at least console themselves with being a top flight club following promotion from Ligue 2 in the summer with billionaire owners of their own but this isn't a Paris FC post.

In total PSG can now boast 58 trophy wins which for a club that only turns just 56 years old in August is a pretty impressive ratio especially when you consider their first major title came in 1982. Their 53 domestic trophies includes a record 13 league title wins.

If you got the impression that they had to think long and hard about the clubs name after the merger then you'll get the same impression from their nicknames; Les Parisiens (The Parisians) and Les Rouge-et-Bleu (The Red-and-Blues). Who says the French are lazy?

At the start of this campaign all top flight French clubs were told to report a domestic TV revenue of €0 on their balance sheets following the collapse of their previous rights deal. Deloitte in their annual money league had PSG listed as the third largest football club in the world in terms of revenues in January of 2025 showing an income of €806m. So whilst they'll be affected like all other French clubs they'll at least have had the added bonus of TV revenues from the Champions League and Club World Cup to soften their blow. Not to mention a commercial brand tied in with Air Jordan and Nike that has led them to become a fashion force, as well known away from the pitch as some of the players on the pitch. Boy have they had some of the biggest stars in world football turn out for them and I don't just mean Pablo Sarabia. In August 2017 they smashed the world record for a transfer fee when they paid the release clause of €222m for Neymar from Barca. If you've ever wondered why Sporting now set theirs at €80m, there's the precedent. It's one thing thinking set it high no one will ever pay that until the day it happens. They also paid the second highest ever fee for Kylian Mbappé paying a reported €180m. Just whisper that he left on a Bosman to Real Madrid. Ouch. Lionel Messi at least joined for free when Barca could no longer register him because of his wages. Zlatan Ibrahimovic another one of the iconic names to have featured.

In the Bayern post I did some comparative numbers to their financial might to those of Sporting’s but the difference again to those of PSG is truly night and day when you consider what QSI have spent on the playing side since they first took over the club in 2011. The irony of the numbers that are about to follow is that their greatest period of success has come after the departure of their superstar names. Maybe there is hope post Gyökeres still for Sporting. They've spent €2.3 billion on gross transfer expenditure. Their wage bill totals to €3.32 billion peaking at €400m in 2021/22 when their side boasted Messi, Neymar and Mbappé. Their combined net transfer spend plus wages totals out to €4.86 billion. However the club is now reported to be valued at €4.25 billion. Not bad for a club whose revenue in 2011 was €99 million.

The club are coached by Luis Enrique Martínez García more commonly known by just Luis Enrique. Yes, that’s correct Enrique isn’t his surname. See these things are researched and educational at the same time. We’ll add that one to the list alongside people who cannot say Lionel Messi correctly despite him being named after Lionel Richie.

Their current league record reads: played 17, won 12, drawn 3, lost 2, GF 37, GA 12. Away from the Parc des Princes played 9, won 5, drawn 2, lost 2, GF 18, GA 11. Of the 37 goals scored 25 have been from open play, 8 from set pieces, 1 free kick and 3 penalties. Their XG 31.4. Top scorers are Bradley Barcola and João Neves with a somewhat surprising 5 goals apiece. Gonçalo Ramos has four to his name. However they do have 17 players with at least one goal to their name and are the leagues top scorers averaging 2.2 goals per game and have the second best defensive record averaging 0.9 goals per game. Top for average possession with 69.7%, second most clean sheets with 8, first for shots on target per match with 6.8. They’ve missed 31 big chances to date in Ligue 1 and average a whopping 679.7 passes per game. In terms of discipline they appear to be relative angels with 10 fouls per match, the lowest total in Ligue 1 and have 20 yellows to their name, again the lowest total of any club.

Some familiar names in the PSG squad, the main one of course being 23 year old Nuno Mendes who will return to the José Alvalade for the first time since his move to PSG in the summer of 2021. Vitinha is proving to be a match winner in the Champions League, he began his career at FC Porto before moving to Paris the summer after Mendes. João Neves moved from the neighbours last summer following in the footsteps of Gonçalo Ramos who moved in 2023.

PSG sit 3rd in the Champions League table, played 6, won 4, drawn 1 and lost 1, GF 19, GA 8. Their away record the second best behind Arsenal, played 3, won 2, drawn 1, GF 9, GA 3. Vitinha their top scorer in the competition with 4 to date. They have been blighted by injuries in fairness to them with Ousmane Dembélé having missed a large chunk of the campaign as has Hakimi. The ex-Porto man has the highest average passes per game in the competition with 98.3. Shout out to Alisson Santos who has the most successful dribbles per 90 with 5.4. PSG’s total of 19 goals equal with Borussia Dortmund for the most scored in the competition averaging 3.2 per game. Just 2 clean sheets to their name however, although that is of course 1 more than the lions. They’re outperforming their XG of 14 goals, average 8 shots on target per match behind Bayern’s 8.2, with a shot conversion rate of 15.8%. 30 big chances created, 20 big chances missed - that’s Luís Suárez levels. Second most touches in the opposition box with 221, at least until after the final whistle has blown Sporting can boast a better XG conceded of 6.6 to PSG’s 8.1. Their sainthood from Ligue 1 almost matched in this competition with just 5 bookings, however they have had 2 players dismissed. The bookings are the lowest total of any side in the competition.  

PSG’s record to date in the Champions League

Atalanta (H) 4-0 Goals from Marquinhos, Kvaratskhelia, Mendes and Ramos. EIGHT big chances missed of TEN created. Final XG 3.48 to 0.55.

Barcelona (A) 2-1 Goals from Mayulu and Ramos. 3 of 5 big chances missed, their XG 1.67 to 1.27.

Bayer Leverkusen (A) 7-2 Goals from Pacho, Doué (2), Kvaratskhelia, Mendes, Dembélé and Vitinha. Just 1 of 4 big chances created missed, XG 2.86 to 2.50. 6 attempts in total for the Bundesliga side.

Bayern Munchen (H) 1-2 The Parisians only defeat, Neves with their solitary goal, 2 of 3 big chances missed, XG in PSG’s favour 1.95 to 1.53. Bayern finished the game with ten men following the dismissal of Luis Dias in additional time at the end of the first half when he had put them 2-1 up.

Tottenham (H) 5-3 A Vitinha hat-trick, Ruiz and Pacho with the other goals. Kolo Muani scored twice against his parent club, anyone would think he had a point to prove. 1 of 3 big chances missed, XG 1.85 to 1.79.

Athletic Club (A) 0-0 Maybe one of the surprise results of the competition as PSG failed to beat or score against Sporting’s one remaining opponent left after this game. That being said, PSG missed all five of their big chances and their XG 2.22 to 0.52.

Transfers

I guess when your squad has found a winning formula you don’t need to make drastic changes to it and the club only brought in 3 players during the summer window.

Incoming

Illia Zabarnyi from AFC Bournemouth for £49m
Lucas Chevalier from Lille for £29m
Renato Marin from AS Roma for £498,000

If the name of Chevalier is familiar, he was in goal during Sporting's win in last season's 2-0 home win over Lille.

Whilst they may have only brought 3 players in, someone pulled the bath plug out.

Outgoing

Presnel Kimpembe to Qatar SC for £3.7m
Gianluigi Donnarumma to Manchester City for £25m
Randal Kolo Muani to Tottenham on loan
Marco Asensio to Fenerbahçe for £6.2m
Carlos Soler to Real Sociedad for £5m
Arnau Tenas to Villareal for £2.1m
Renato Sanches to Panathinaikos on loan
Nordi Mukiele to Sunderland for £10m
Louis Mouquet to Padova for free
Milan Skriniar to Fenerbahçe for £7.5m
Lucas Lavallée to Chateroux for £208,000
Gabriel Moscardo to Braga on loan
Ibrahima Diaby to Cercle Brugge for free
Younes El Hannach to Montpellier on loan
Yoram Zague to FC København on loan
Oumar Camara to Victoria SC for free
Axel Tape-Kobrissa to Bayer Leverkusen for free

Monday night update 

PSG's name won't be on the Coupe de France this year as they lose the Dérbi 1-0 to Paris FC. The lions future opponents with 25 attempts to 4, missed 6 of 6 big chances and despite finishing with an XG of 1.73 to 0.49 couldn't find a way back into the game. Their starting XI included the likes of Ramos, Kvaratshelia and Vitinha. Even the introduction of Mendes, Dembélé and Doué wasn't enough to shift the balance. 

In the markets

Sporting CP 29/10 
Draw 29/10
PSG 4/5