PSG on 'different level' - are they building greatest European dynasty?
BBC Sport · C · trust 37/100
Some find success sweet but fleeting, others spend years building to the pinnacle, and then there are those whose lasting glory evolves into a dynasty.
After tearing Manchester City apart in large spells of their 4-2 Champions League victory on Wednesday, Paris St-Germain look well on track to join the latter bracket.
The back-to-back European champions sliced through City with astonishing ease to take a 3-0 lead into half-time, and were still able to score another despite a spirited second-half fightback from the Premier League leaders.
After obliterating Inter Milan 5-0 in the 2025 final before squeezing past Arsenal on penalties in last season's showpiece game, Luis Enrique's side are aiming to win a third consecutive European crown.
They would be the fifth team to do so going back to 1956, and just the second in the Champions League era.
"This PSG team are on a different level," Chris Sutton told BBC Radio 5 Live at half-time.
"They have just run all over Manchester City, who haven't been able to string passes together. It's been an absolute pummelling for Man City."
To mark PSG's latest display of attacking excellence, we're looking at how the Parisians compare to those clubs who have enjoyed the most dominant eras in European competition.
Some will point out that football existed before the European Champion Clubs' Cup began in 1955 - so apologies to Stan Cullis' 'world-champion' Wolves outfit and the Mitropa Cup's early Vienna heavyweights.
However, this top 10 debate is centred around winning European football's grandest prize.
OK, straight in with the current champions, because this is a dynasty in the making.
Paris St-Germain are hoping to enter that bracket and the 4-2 win against Manchester City on Wednesday reminded the rest of Europe why you shouldn't bet against them becoming continental champions for a third successive season.
PSG had a lacklustre start to the domestic season - they always do, don't they? - but boast an uncanny ability to click into gear when it matters.
In Manchester, Luis Enrique's side were at their unstoppable best. A ruthless blend of silky flicks and slick off-the-ball movement that saw a dazed City caught several frames behind.
"Unbelievable. PSG, what a team," Sutton said.
"PSG's press, I don't think there's another team that press with their intensity and ferocity.
"This [City] is one of the best teams in the Premier League getting an absolutely roasting. This is them [PSG] having a slow start to the season. Heaven help everyone."
The Parisians have been France's most dominant force since the arrival of Qatar Sports Investments 15 years ago, but it took a change of approach for the holy grail of continental success to arrive.
"It's the end of the glitter," professed president Nasser Al-Khelaifi after years of lavish spending, ushering out the "flashy, bling-bling" era.
Instead, Enrique arrived in 2023 intent on building a coherent team. There was still significant investment, but on younger players who could be moulded by his philosophy and discipline while given room to flourish.
The result was two scintillating Champions League triumphs.
Talking of discipline. Helenio Herrera, the Argentine-born defender reared in Casablanca and Paris, had already traversed the dugouts of Atletico Madrid, Malaga, Deportivo and Barcelona before landing in Milan in 1960.
Herrera set about implementing his tactical brand of catenaccio at San Siro - one he insisted is misremembered as being more defensive than it actually was - and developing a ruthless counter-attacking team known as 'Grande Inter'.
Winning the Scudetto in 1962-63, Herrera's outfit became the first to lift the European Cup without losing a game the following season as Sandro Mazzola netted twice against Real Madrid in the final.
The Italians defended their crown the following year, despite losing their semi-final first leg at Anfield, edging Benfica in the final. It was the Portuguese giants' second final defeat in three seasons. Some may say they were cursed...
The story goes that Bela Guttmann, fresh from winning the title with Porto, rocked up at Benfica, sacked all the senior players and promoted a talented bunch of youth team players instead.
Those promising youngsters won the title and then went all the way in the European Cup, beating Barcelona in the 1961 final.
That summer, a teenage Eusebio also joined Guttmann's squad and steered them to European glory once more, seeing off Tottenham Hotspur in the semi-final before beating the great Real Madrid in the competition's showpiece.
The legendary Ferenc Puskas scored a first-half hat-trick for the Spaniards, but Eusebio netted twice after the interval to seal Benfica a second successive crown.
Guttmann, buoyed by his remarkable success, left the club after not being offered the pay rise he felt he deserved and the curse the Hungarian boss supposedly put on the club - that they would not win another European trophy for 100 years - has become fable.
Whether the often-disputed story is true or not, the Lisbon giants have not landed another since - losing eight European finals, including three in the 1960s.
This was Bayern's coming of age. Emerging from what was a fiercely competitive West German football scene, the Bavarians - promoted to the Bundesliga less than a decade earlier - were able to establish themselves as heavyweights in Europe.
With a backbone of goalkeeper Sepp Maier, marauding sweeper Franz Beckenbauer and the prolific Gerd Muller, and fresh off West Germany winning the 1974 World Cup, Bayern clinched three on the bounce, despite their domestic form dipping.
In fact, Beckenbauer said Bayern were past their peak after the first European Cup win over Atletico Madrid, but experience carried them through big games.
They beat Leeds in a controversial final in Paris, and then saw off Saint-Etienne the following year.
The teams above make the list for their trophy-winning spells. Pep Guardiola's…
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