Achraf Hakimi: PSG's Transformation Under Luis Enrique
Achraf Hakimi leans back, considers the question, and doesn’t hesitate.
“Luis Enrique? He has changed everything at PSG.”
For once, it doesn’t sound like a throwaway line. In Paris, the evidence is everywhere.
Under Enrique, Paris Saint-Germain have ripped up their old script. Three consecutive Ligue 1 titles, the 2024-25 Champions League already in the bag, and now another European crown in sight with Arsenal waiting in Budapest. This is no longer the club of fractured egos and fragile nights in Europe. Hakimi insists it feels like something else entirely.
“Since he arrived, everyone has changed their mentality: now we are a team, we play for each other, we run for each other, we are a family,” the full-back told Sky Sport. “Playing like this, everything becomes easier. I am lucky to be in this team, with these teammates, and this coach. He changed my mentality and my way of being on the pitch. He has made me better as a footballer and as a man.”
Those aren’t light words from a player who has already lived several footballing lives by the age of 27.
Enrique’s PSG, Hakimi’s stage
The cultural shift Hakimi describes has played out in his own numbers. This season he has been electric: three goals and nine assists in 31 appearances, a constant outlet and a relentless runner on the right. Across his PSG career, the totals are piling up – 28 goals and 44 assists in 206 matches – elite output for a defender who often looks more like a winger.
His availability for the final in Budapest had become a national talking point after he picked up an injury against Bayern Munich. Any doubt over his condition threatened to overshadow PSG’s build-up. Then Enrique walked into his press conference and shut the conversation down.
“Everyone is ready. Everyone arrives in a different way,” the coach said, offering the calm of a man who has seen it all. “But it will be a week with a lot of changes, rest days and a lot of training to prepare the small offensive and defensive details. The rest is the sun in Paris and Budapest.”
The message was clear: no excuses, no distractions, no drama. Just details.
For Hakimi, that means locking back into the routine, eyes fixed on Arsenal and nothing else.
“Being in the final again? I think it is a very beautiful achievement,” he said. “It was not an easy path and we are proud to have reached the end of the competition again. But now we must not lose focus because Arsenal are a truly strong opponent.”
The pride is there, but so is the edge. PSG know how quickly a European dream can unravel. Hakimi has lived that too.
Roots in Milan, destiny in Paris
As he prepares for what could become the defining match of his club career, Hakimi’s thoughts still drift back to Italy. Before Paris, before Enrique, there was Inter.
He arrived at San Siro from Real Madrid in September 2020 and left less than a year later, sold to PSG in July 2021 for a reported €68 million. The stay was brief, the impact lasting. Inter’s recent domestic double – Serie A and Coppa Italia – stirred something deep.
“Yes, I am an Interista and I am very happy for the championship and the Coppa Italia,” he admitted. The bond with that dressing room remains intact. “If I have spoken to anyone? I wrote to Lautaro, I get along very well with him.”
It is a reminder that modern footballers can carry more than one home. Milan still tugs at his heart, Madrid shaped his youth, Paris now demands his peak. The nostalgia is real, but the priority is ruthless: win Europe again with PSG.
A defender at the heart of a revolution
Hakimi’s words about Enrique echo the broader transformation of the club. PSG once built around superstars and slogans; now they sell something different: structure, sacrifice, a squad that actually looks like a team in the harsh light of a Champions League knockout tie.
“Now we are a team, we play for each other, we run for each other, we are a family,” Hakimi said. It sounds simple. It took years for Paris to get here.
He is the perfect symbol of that shift. A player whose game used to be defined by explosive runs and highlight-reel moments now talks about mentality, about being made “better as a man” as much as a footballer. The numbers still shine, but they sit inside a collective frame.
Budapest will test all of it. Arsenal bring pace, precision and a manager obsessed with details of his own. Hakimi will be asked to sprint, to defend space, to attack it, to lead. This is the kind of night he left Italy for, the kind of night Enrique came to Paris to own.
Inter will be watching. Lautaro will almost certainly send a message. But the man who calls himself an Interista knows where his duty lies now.
The family he runs for wears PSG shirts, and in Budapest, they are chasing a second star.
