MUNICH, Germany – Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League for the first time in their history as Luis Enrique’s brilliant young side outclassed Inter Milan on Saturday in the most one-sided final ever and teenager Desire Doue scored twice in an astonishing 5-0 victory.

Achraf Hakimi, playing against his former club, gave PSG an early lead and Doue went from provider to finisher as his deflected shot doubled their advantage in the 20th minute.

Doue scored again just after the hour mark, ending any doubt about the outcome before Khvicha Kvaratskhelia ran away to get the fourth and substitute Senny Mayulu made it five.

Inter were simply no match for the French club, who recorded the biggest victory by any team in the final in the 70-year history of the European Cup and Champions League.

“This means everything. It’s my dream, it’s our dream. It’s incredible. The result is not by magic.
I’m happy we did it like this, we’re now going to celebrate,” said Portuguese midfielder Vitinha, who was one of PSG’s creative sparks.

The triumph for the Parisians comes after more than a decade of huge investment from their Qatari owners, and five years after they lost to Bayern Munich in their only previous final appearance.

Already French league and cup double winners, they are remarkably just the second ever French winners of European football’s biggest prize — Marseille were the first in 1993, when they beat AC Milan in a final also played in Munich.

It is also a second Champions League for PSG coach Luis Enrique, who won with Lionel Messi’s Barcelona a decade ago.

This youthful PSG side is the best the competition has seen since, one that has been intelligently pieced together over the last two years and fully unleashed this season following the departure of Kylian Mbappe.

Indeed the star on the night was teenager Doue, who delivered a masterclass just before he turns 20 on Tuesday.

For Inter, there was to be no first Champions League title since 2010 as they failed to add to their three previous triumphs in the competition.

Simone Inzaghi’s side have now got to the final twice in three seasons and lost both, and this defeat comes a week after they missed out on the Serie A title to Napoli.

They end the campaign trophyless, and their aging side will need to be rebuilt.

Taking no chances

PSG gave their opponents no chance from the off on a sweaty night at the Allianz Arena, and they were ahead in the 12th minute.

It was a glorious goal, Vitinha threading a pass to Doue who squared for Hakimi to finish into an empty net, before refusing to celebrate against his former club.

It was also the earliest goal in a Champions League final since 2019, and recent history was already firmly against Inter.

The last final in which both teams scored was in 2018, while the last team to concede the first goal but still win were Real Madrid in 2014.

But soon Inter were further behind with a goal that came on a counterattack.

Willian Pacho prevented Inter from winning a corner, his clearance falling to Kvaratskhelia, who released Ousmane Dembele. His pass found Doue, and the youngster who was preferred in the starting line-up to Bradley Barcola fired past Yann Sommer, via a deflection off Federico Dimarco.

Inter only really came close to scoring in the first half when Marcus Thuram headed just wide at a corner, but things got worse after the break.

The night for Inzaghi’s side was summed up by defender Yann Bisseck, who came on for Benjamin Pavard early in the second half but limped off less than 10 minutes later.

Their back line was at sixes and sevens as PSG made it 3-0 on 63 minutes, Dembele’s flick releasing Vitinha before the little Portuguese playmaker set up Doue to beat Sommer at his near post.

Doue came off shortly after to rapturous applause, but his teammates were far from done.

Dembele sent Kvaratskhelia away to to make it 4-0 in the 73rd minute, and the 19-year-old Mayulu then played a one-two with Barcola before lashing in the fifth on 86 minutes.

That rounded off an incredible night, with PSG becoming the first team to score five goals in the final since Benfica in 1962.

AN-AFP

PARIS – Naomi Osaka still wore the pink accessories in her hair inspired by “sakura” — cherry blossoms — and there were streaks on her cheeks where tears had rolled, when she sat down for a French Open news conference after her first-round loss to Paula Badosa on Monday.

Osaka’s red eyes welled as she answered a few questions before needing a break and briefly leaving the interview room following the 6-7 (1), 6-1, 6-4 exit against the 10th-seeded Badosa.

“As time goes on, I feel like I should be doing better. But also — I kind of talked about this before, maybe a couple years ago, or maybe recently, I’m not sure — I hate disappointing people,” said Osaka, who owns four Grand Slam trophies from the hard courts of the U.S. Open and Australian Open but never has been past the third round on the red clay of Roland-Garros.

Then, referring to her current coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, who used to work with Serena Williams, Osaka said: “He goes from working with, like, the greatest player ever to, like, ‘What the (expletive) is this?’ You know what I mean? Sorry for cursing. I hope I don’t get fined.”

Osaka, who was born in Japan and moved to the United States as a young child, was undone Monday by 54 unforced errors. That was twice as many as Badosa, whose best showing at a major was a semifinal run at the Australian Open in January and who reached the quarterfinals at Roland-Garros in 2021.

After taking the opening set, Osaka was treated by a trainer for hand blisters and also took time to clip her sakura-themed fingernails on the sideline.

She attributed the blisters, which also bothered her at the Italian Open this month, to “the friction of clay, because I don’t have blisters on any other surface.”

Osaka’s powerful serves and groundstrokes are dulled by the clay, and that showed against Badosa. Osaka was broken five times and finished with nearly as many double-faults, five, as aces, seven.

Once ranked No. 1 and currently No. 49, Osaka withdrew from the French Open in 2021 before her second-round match, explaining that she experiences “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media and revealing she had dealt with depression. She then took multiple mental health breaks away from the tour.

She helped usher in a change in the way athletes, sports fans and society at large understood the importance of mental health.

AP

BILBAO – Brennan Johnson’s scrambled goal ended a 17-year Tottenham trophy drought with a battling 1-0 win over Manchester United in the Europa League final on Wednesday.

Spurs, who had not won European silverware since 1984, will play in next season’s Champions League, while failing to qualify for it is a severe financial set-back for Manchester United.

Despite their triumph in Bilbao, manager Ange Postecoglou’s future is still on the line following a shambolic domestic campaign, with Spurs sitting a place below United in the lower reaches of the Premier League table.

The Australian furiously insisted he was “not a clown” on the eve of the final and had the last laugh on a nerve-racking night at the San Mames, as he made good on his claim to always win a trophy in his second season in charge of a club.

“This is what it’s all about, this club hasn’t won a trophy for 17 years, honestly, this is what it means, it means so much,” Wales winger Johnson told TNT Sports.

“Ever since I came here it’s been (people saying) ‘Tottenham are a good team, but they never get it done’ — we got it done!“
Fans came from far and wide to pack Athletic Bilbao’s stadium, some taking quite preposterous routes and sleeping in cars to avoid eye-watering prices, but they could not escape a final lacking in quality.

It was a match between teams languishing in 16th and 17th place respectively after dismal Premier League campaigns and that was the essence of it too, played at high intensity but with low confidence, and a prize on the line so big it overawed.

There were a large number of turnovers, neither side keeping the ball with any ease, moves ending in panicked defending and balls being thumped to safety, or a litany of clumsy fouls.

Harry Maguire blocked well from Tottenham’s Pape Sarr early on after Johnson nipped in ahead of Luke Shaw to break in down the right.

Manchester United fans chanted Ruben Amorim’s name, backing their Portuguese coach despite the club’s worst Premier League season in half a century.

At the other end, 22-year-old United winger Amad Diallo, one of the few players high on self-belief, flashed a shot across goal and then left Destiny Udogie spinning, trying in vain to find him as he dribbled past.

Spurs made the breakthrough after 42 minutes and, perhaps fittingly, it came in the form of an extremely scrappy goal.

Tottenham midfielder Sarr, who had completed just a single pass to this point, curled in a cross to the near post for Johnson.

The winger’s attempted flick bounced off Shaw’s shoulder, brushed Johnson’s boot again and crossed the goal-line in slow motion with Andre Onana unable to claw it out with a desperate arm.

Spurs sat back in the second half, trying to protect their slender advantage and look for opportunities to strike again on the counter-attack.

They nearly found one when Yves Bissouma played in Dominic Solanke, but the striker could not control the pass and the chance went to waste.

Manchester United almost equalized when Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario came off his line but failed to claim a set-piece pounded forward from deep.

The ball dropped for Rasmus Hojlund but his header over the stranded Spurs stopper was sensationally cleared in acrobatic fashion by Micky van de Ven.

Spurs sent on captain Son Heung-min for the ragged Richarlison, with the South Korean international a surprising non-starter.

Manchester United turned to Alejandro Garnacho and Joshua Zirkzee to try and dig them out of their hole, but fell to a fourth defeat against Spurs this season.

Shaw had a chance to redeem himself at the end for his part in Johnson’s goal but his header was pushed to safety by Vicario.

Amorim said winning the trophy would not solve United’s many deep-lying problems but could set the club up well for the future, however United leave Bilbao without even that.

For the first time since the 2014-15 season they will not play European football next term.

AN-AFP, 22.5.2025

PARIS – Motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson and MotoGP announced a new global racing series on Saturday which will launch in 2026, with teams riding bagger motorcycles at Grands Prix in Europe and North America.

Riders will be given race-prepared Harley-Davidson Road Glide bagger motorcycles, which are touring-style bikes designed for long-distance riding.

The 12-race series will run at six Grands Prix on the MotoGP calendar and the grid is expected to have six to eight teams with two riders each.

“This is a bold new step for Harley-Davidson’s global racing ambitions,” Harley-Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz said in a statement.

“With this new series, we’re excited to bring a new form of racing to the world stage.”

The teams will be supported by Harley-Davidson Factory Racing.

AN-REUTERS, 10.5.2025