Paris Saint-Germain

PSG McKinsey 7S: the post-Mbappé team-first reset

For a decade Qatar Sports Investments tried to buy the Champions League — Neymar, Messi, Mbappé, the most expensive front three in history — and never won it. In 2025, with all three gone, Paris Saint-Germain finally lifted the trophy, beating Inter 5-0 in the biggest-margin European final ever, with four goals scored or assisted by teenagers. The McKinsey 7S framework explains the reversal precisely. PSG spent a decade perfecting the three 'hard' S's — Strategy (win the Champions League), Structure (QSI money and infrastructure), Systems (unlimited transfer budget). What it kept getting wrong were the four 'soft' S's: Shared Values (a galáctico culture of individuals), Style (managers who couldn't impose a system on superstars), Staff (a collection of names, not a team), and Skills (commercial star power, not collective play). Luis Enrique and sporting advisor Luis Campos realigned all four at once — a younger squad (Dembélé, Doué, Kvaratskhelia, João Neves), a system-first style, and a 'collective over individual' identity. 7S's central lesson is that the soft S's are the hard part; PSG is the clean proof — same hard S's, finally-aligned soft ones, first European Cup.