Paris Saint-Germain’s opening match of the new Ligue 1 season ended in frustration and, ultimately, relief. Trailing 2-0 at the break to Rennes, head coach Luis Enrique made two immediate half-time changes, replacing both Ousmane Démbélé and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia with new signings Ferran Torres and Mika Godts.
Torres responded with a brace that pulled PSG back to a 2-2 draw at Roazhon Park, sparing the reigning champions an opening-day defeat but not sparing Démbélé a pointed message from his manager afterward.
“If you think about what you’ve already won, you won’t win anything else.”Luis Enrique, PSG Head Coach
The coach went further, describing the standard he expects his squad to meet on a daily basis. For Enrique, credit earned in previous seasons including PSG’s continental success does not carry forward into training sessions or matchdays.
Every session and every fixture, he said, is a fresh audition, and players who lean on reputation risk losing their edge. It was a message aimed squarely at complacency, delivered a day after two of the club’s most influential attackers from the previous campaign endured a subdued first half in Brittany.
Enrique was equally direct about what he expects going forward, tying the substitution decision to a broader philosophy of continuous improvement rather than a one-off rebuke.
Comfort, in his view, is the enemy of consistency, and a squad that wants to keep winning has to be willing to be pushed beyond familiar territory, training habits, and settled roles.
The result leaves PSG with a single point from their opening fixture of the title defence, but the coach’s comments suggest the club’s champions are entering the new campaign under the same demanding standards that underpinned their success the previous season standards, he made clear, that apply without exception, Ballon d’Or or not.