Luis Enrique says Ousmane Dembele ticks the boxes needed to win Ballon d'Or
Dembele has been outstanding during a campaign in which PSG have already won four trophies and Enrique sees no better candidate for the award of world's best player.
IN THE WORLD CUP FINAL!#PSGREAL I #FIFACWC pic.twitter.com/THMn1tW31U
— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_English) July 9, 2025
The former Spain and Barcelona manager said: 'To win it you have to score goals and get assists and then bring silverware to their team.
'If there is one player who has done all that it is Ousmane Dembele. He is far and away above other players in my opinion.'
Dembele's strike came between two from Fabian Ruiz as PSG took charge with three goals inside the first 24 minutes. Goncalo Ramos wrapped up the scoring late on.
It was a blistering performance reminiscent of their 5-0 hammering of Inter Milan in the Champions League final.
PSG now have the chance to secure an historic quintuple having also won three domestic trophies as well as their European success.
Enrique said: 'That was always our objective from the onset. It's very difficult to achieve. We're one win away from building history and that's very significant for us and our fans.
'Its my absolute pleasure to have worked in Paris.'
Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso admitted defeat was a painful experience but is convinced he has the materials to build a strong side.
The former Real and Liverpool midfielder succeeded Carlo Ancelotti in May at the end of a disappointing domestic season in which the club failed to win a trophy.
Alonso said: 'PSG are playing at a top, top level. We are not the first to have a big defeat against them. It was really tough to play against them.
'It is a painful defeat, we have to admit, that but this will tell us the areas we need to improve.
'It is going to be a challenge but we will face that.'
The game marked a sad end to veteran midfielder Luka Modric's illustrious 13-year career with Real, in which he won 28 trophies.
The Croatian, who came off the bench for the last 26 minutes, is set to join AC Milan before next season.
'He will be remembered as a football icon,' said Alonso. 'He will not be remembered for today's match.'
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Scotsman
38 minutes ago
- Scotsman
Steven Pressley opens up on Dundee, difficult times, part in Boozegate and being back in Scotland
New Dens Park boss speaks to The Scotsman ahead of his first match Sign up to our Football newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... In the former temperance hotel where Dundee Football Club were formed, Steven Pressley is explaining his part in the Boozegate scandal. Sipping nothing more potent than a decaf Americano, the new Dens Park head coach has had it put to him that he has been front and centre in so many of Scottish football's most enduring episodes of the last quarter of a century, literally so in the case of the Riccarton Three rebellion. That was when he sat at a table between Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon and voiced grave concerns about how Heart of Midlothian Football Club were being run under Vladimir Romanov. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad He hadn't wanted to be there but felt it had reached a point where saying nothing was no longer an option. Likewise, one imagines, he hadn't wanted to see Barry Ferguson sitting with Allan McGregor at a table at breakfast time the morning after a Scotland game. Steven Pressley takes charge of his first Dundee match on Saturday. | SNS Group Nothing so strange about that, perhaps. Except they were still in the suits they had been wearing the previous evening as they travelled back from Amsterdam following a chastening 3-0 defeat to the Netherlands in 2009. It was instantly apparent they hadn't yet been to bed. 'We've talked about my principles,' Pressley says, referencing the earlier discussion about the Riccarton protest. 'My principles got in the way of many things. I was someone who would not use the media to get the correct narrative out there. I was one who said, no, this is the right way. I learned to understand that of course in time. False narratives developed around certain things and I did not manage them properly. Boozegate was certainly one of them. 'On reflection, I should never have taken the position of assistant coach for the national team. Being at Celtic at the time, it was never going to work still being a player.' It also saw him lose focus as a footballer, leading to what he considers was his premature retirement aged 35. Like Zinedine Zidane, he was sent off in his last ever game. Unlike Zinedine Zidane, whose career came to slightly quicker than planned ending in a World Cup final against Italy, Pressley was sent off playing for Falkirk against St Mirren. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Everything transpired from there' 'As for Boozegate, and my part in this whole situation,' he continues. 'I had come down in the morning to meet my family on the Sunday morning after the Saturday game. I met them in the bar area. And then just as I was ready to leave, I noticed Barry was still there. Of course, he was there in his suit. Him and Allan. Me and another member of staff escorted them up to their room. We hoped that was the end of it. Of course, Barry left his room again. Everything transpired from there. That was the crux of the story.' Scott Brown had already skedaddled, which was an additional complication. 'The situation escalated. It became a really difficult situation to manage, especially for George (Burley) who at the time was going through his own difficulties. 'The feeling from Barry and Allan was that they had been persecuted because of the club they played for (Brown was of course Pressley's teammate at the time). I have spoken to him (Ferguson) a couple of times since, there's never been any problem,' he says. Steven Pressley (left) stretches off with Scotland captain Barry Ferguson in 2007. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602 The fact they've only spoken a couple of times since nevertheless suggests some simmering rancour. Or it might just be down to the fact that Pressley, having loomed large in Scottish football's orbit for so long, seemed to suddenly slip away from it all. From 2013, when he took over at Coventry City, to last month, when forums were abuzz with news that he had been chosen to replace Tony Docherty at Dundee, he was out of sight and, perhaps, out of mind. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'I've enjoyed being out of it,' he says. 'It's been quite sobering for me. I have probably never been so comfortable with myself and honest about myself. There's been a big change in me. There's not this kind of person that you think people want to see. I grew up in this era where you have to show strength all the time. But strength, I know now, can be shown in many different ways. At the time, vulnerability couldn't be shown. As a football player, you get into that costume, pretend to be a great leader...' It's perhaps incumbent to note mention it was Pressley's fate to be seeking to make his presence felt in the dressing room of one of British football's biggest clubs while his father, Gene, was dying of cancer. He passed away aged 47 in 1994. Looking back on difficult times Pressley, at Rangers at the time, was just 20 and felt the floor give way from under him. The manager, Walter Smith, understandably took his young defender out of the firing line, which only compounded matters for Pressley. He had what can only be termed as a breakdown during a training session. 'I actually remember two or three months after he'd taken me out of the team, it was a possession-type drill we were doing,' he says. 'I was in the middle and our team was struggling to get the ball back." Pressley describes bursting into tears. 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Steven Pressley during his time at Hearts. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602 He was once sore at not being invited back to Tynecastle since leaving. However, he says he accepts it now. Not that he will require an invite on 1 November, when Dundee are due in Gorgie for the first time this coming season. Always tasty encounters, this one will contain an additional spicy ingredient. 'As long as I make it that far,' Pressley smiles, as if to underline that he now realises no one is bullet proof. The self-deprecation is also a sign that he knows what people are saying: Dundee have made an absolute ricket of this one, replacing the dependable Docherty with someone who hasn't been in the dugout for a competitive game since pre-Covid days. --------- That all changes on Saturday afternoon when Dundee entertain Airdrie in the League Cup. Surprisingly, the occasion of his first game will be Pressley's first visit to the club's home since he was appointed over five weeks ago amid considerable hostility. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Not only were many Dundee fans up in arms on social media, but his own mother, Norma, was unhappy. She did however stop short of visiting fans' forums to register her disgust, with a thread on one such site reaching 150 bristling pages. Now 77, his mum's 'doing great' reports Pressley. She still lives in Dalgety Bay, where he moved with his family from Elgin aged three. He adds: 'She is obviously happy her boy is back in Scotland. She is not happy I am back in management. She enjoyed my time out of it.' Steven Pressley is back in Scotland as a manager. | SNS Group No disrespect to his mother, but it's good to have Pressley back in Scottish football. He's already been the source of some mild entertainment at his unveiling press conference, when he admits he was nervous having been away from the media limelight for so long. Maybe his clearly prepared-in-advance line about him not being the right man if Dundee fans want someone with a history of winning titles was evidence of this unease. It was quickly seized upon and ridiculed when, in reality, winning titles, or indeed any honour, has not been something Dundee managers do since Davie White in December 1973. A month after Pressley was born, as it happens. 'Really?' he says. It would be a mic drop moment to rival Ange Postecoglou leading Spurs to a trophy in his second season at the club if Pressley can be the one to end this drought. As for him personally, he's won everything else in Scotland bar the League Cup as a player (he lost a final with, whisper it, Dundee United in 1997) 'I don't regret saying that at all,' Pressley reflects. 'As I was saying earlier, I am comfortable speaking the truth. And not trying to be something I am not. That's the fact. My history as a manger has been very much about developing players and teams. I won one trophy at Falkirk, the Challenge Cup. But my history would certainly not suggest I am a manager who will win things. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Now I hope my experiences at Brentford (where he was head of individual player development) have changed how I go about things and how I look at football. But at the same time, it is not history where I have a lot of titles.' Former Dundee bosses make contact For Dundee, sadly, it's a similar story. Their only manager to win the actual Scottish league title is Bob Shankly, something Pressley is aware. One of his mentors, Alex Smith, worked under Shankly at Stirling Albion. 'Alex speaks so fondly about him, his management style,' says Pressley, who reveals Smith has been in touch from his base in Australia, as has Archie Knox, who was assistant manager at Ibrox when he was a Rangers player and is one of many predecessors in the Dens Park hot seat (Knox is also a Dundee fan). No pressure, Steven. Although technical director Gordon Strachan will be in the Dens Park directors' box against Airdrie, and it's been announced that Pressley's backroom staff has expanded with the appointment of first-team coach Barry Nicholson and goalkeeper coach Glen Johnson, he aims to be his own man. It's hardly penetrating analysis to describe the Dundee squad as light, even given several new signings. Pressley wants 'five or six' more, ideally at least two before the league start v Hibs. He does have three goalkeepers, with Trevor Carson and Jon McCracken vying for the No.1 jersey. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Fight for the gloves 'They will get equal minutes over the next couple of games and I want them to grab the jersey,' he says. 'I have come in here with an open mind about quite a lot of players. Sometimes you can come in with a preconceived idea and that can be dangerous. When you come in with an open mind sometimes players can surprise you. 'We still need five or six players in the group. One of the discussions we had prior to me coming in was we wanted a smaller group of say 20 players plus the goalkeepers, which I actually think is a good thing.' He's continuing to rediscover Dundee from his current city centre base. He's already made new friends at the local trendy optical boutique Land O' Spex (nee Spex Pistols). They quickly posted a picture of Pressley – 'the king is in the building!' – sporting his new pair of stylish goggles on social media. 'About four months ago, at night when I put the TV schedule on I realised it was a little bit faint,' he explains. 'Of course, I got my eyes tested and I needed glasses. I have been putting it off. Then I decided the other day that I need to go and get them. I went there and the gentleman looked after me. It's a lovely shop.' He's yet to decide whether he needs to wear them to watch games. Steven Pressley pictured with Richard Cook, the owner of Land O' Specs, after receiving his new glasses. | Steven Pressley pictured with the owner of Land O' Specs after receiving his new glasses. The personal housekeeping has continued. On the day we meet, he's about to get his hair cut. 'Nothing too severe, my wife told me that,' he says. 'She said that when she left.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad When Pressley says 'left', he doesn't mean for good, as many might have expected would be the likely outcome after June was informed by her husband that their long-planned trip to Vietnam to celebrate 25 years of being married was being cut short because he needed to get to Dundee. She has in fact just visited from their family home in Leamington Spa for the first time since her husband was appointed. They once lived together in the city. Ah yes, another tricky part of his history. Not only is he a former Dundee United player, but Pressley remains the Tannadice club's most expensive one 30 years after joining from Coventry City for a fee of £750,000. He says he can see the top of the roof of his old digs from Dundee's training base as he puts his players through their paces. Time at Dundee United 'I used to stay over the fence, in a flat converted by Geoff Brown,' he says. He has made few return visits other than when playing at Tannadice or Dens, although he did come back to watch his striker son Aaron, now at Walsall, play for Scotland Under-21s against Kazakhstan at Dundee United's ground. Pressley recalls his first experience playing at Dens. Deployed at right back for Rangers, he was given an uncomfortable afternoon by flying Dundee winger Andy Kiwomya, although the visitors did emerge 3-1 winners in that Boxing Day 1992 fixture. "It was a good lesson for me as a young player," he says. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's also a reminder just how long Pressley has been operating at the top. That was the season Rangers came close to reaching the Champions League final. Pressley even came on against Marseille at Ibrox. As we were saying, he's been involved in so many memorable moments, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, including winning one of 32 caps in Scotland's 1-0 win over France in 2006. He is the only player to lift the Scottish Cup with three different clubs and one of the few to have crossed the great Glasgow divide.
Reuters
44 minutes ago
- Reuters
England's new forward Beever-Jones eager to contribute at Euro 2025
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