Achraf Hakimi's Transformation Under Luis Enrique at PSG
Achraf Hakimi leans back, smiles, and doesn’t bother dressing it up.
“Luis Enrique? He has changed everything at PSG.”
In a club built on star power and ego, that’s not a throwaway line. It’s a verdict.
Enrique’s PSG, Hakimi’s PSG
Since Enrique walked through the doors in Paris, PSG have stopped pretending to be a team and started acting like one. Three straight Ligue 1 titles have followed, along with the 2024-25 Champions League. Now they stand one game away from a second consecutive European crown, with Arsenal waiting in Budapest.
Hakimi has lived that transformation from the inside. He talks less like a player reciting a script and more like someone who’s felt his own career jolt onto a higher track.
“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,” he 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 the words of a player simply thriving in a system. They’re the words of a player who believes the system has reshaped him.
And the numbers back up the feeling. This season the full-back has been electric: three goals, nine assists in 31 appearances, surging up and down the flank with the same relentlessness that once lit up Serie A. Across his PSG career, he sits on 28 goals and 44 assists in 206 matches — outrageous output for a defender, the statistical footprint of a modern wide creator who happens to start from the back line.
Fitness fears erased before Budapest
There was a scare. An injury against Bayern Munich raised doubts over his condition and, by extension, PSG’s right flank in the biggest game of their season.
Enrique shut that down.
“Everyone is ready. Everyone arrives in a different way,” he said this week, offering the sort of calm that has come to define his tenure. “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.”
No alarm. No drama. Just work, detail, and the quiet confidence of a squad that has grown used to walking into finals.
Hakimi’s focus is razor sharp.
“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.”
Pride, yes. But no hint of complacency. Not from a player who knows what it takes to reach this stage and how quickly it can all slip away.
A heart in Milan, a mission in Paris
Even as he prepares for another Champions League final, Hakimi’s story still runs through Italy.
He arrived at Inter from Real Madrid in September 2020 and exploded, his speed and aggression perfectly tuned to Serie A’s rhythms. A year later, PSG paid a reported €68 million to bring him to Paris, a fee that underlined just how highly Europe rated him.
Inter never left him.
“Yes, I am an Interista and I am very happy for the championship and the Coppa Italia,” he admitted, reacting to the Nerazzurri’s latest domestic successes. The connection to that dressing room remains alive. “If I have spoken to anyone? I wrote to Lautaro, I get along very well with him.”
It’s a reminder that careers don’t move in clean breaks. Players carry clubs with them — the stadiums, the songs, the teammates who became friends. Hakimi still feels Milan. Still watches Inter. Still celebrates their trophies.
But his reality is different now. His absolute priority sits in Paris colours, under Enrique, with a Champions League final in Budapest as the next defining chapter.
He calls this PSG a family. On Saturday night, against Arsenal, the question is simple: can that family finish what Enrique started and turn a cultural revolution into a European dynasty?
