Jose Mourinho believes Paris Saint-Germain should have won the Champions League already, considering the “crazy” level of investment in the squad.
The French club have the chance to lift the one trophy that has evaded them since the arrival of owners Qatar Sports Investments when they take on Bayern Munich on Sunday.
After failing to make it beyond the last eight in the previous seven seasons, PSG have prospered with the revised format in Portugal, defeating Atalanta and RB Leipzig to make it to the final.
However, having spent big in pursuit of European success, Tottenham boss Mourinho feels it is a failure they have not reigned in recent years.
“I think it is a failure that they didn’t win it in the two seasons before because for five or six years the investment is crazy, the list of top players that is there is incredible,” Mourinho – a two-time Champions League winner – said in an interview with DAZN.
“For how many seasons Thiago Silva is there, Marquinhos is there, and then all the big guys, Ibra [Zlatan Ibrahimovic], [Edinson] Cavani, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe.
“It’s, of course, their dream and for the first time they arrive in this kind of situation and this is the kind of game where these guys normally flourish, even if I think that as a team they are nothing from another world, these are players from another world.”
PSG have suffered second-leg heartbreak in recent campaigns, including being on the wrong end of a famous comeback by Barcelona in their last-16 tie in 2016-2017.
However, with this season’s Champions League held up by the coronavirus pandemic, changes were made to allow for the completion of the knockout rounds.
Some have suggested the single-leg format should remain in place too, though Mourinho is not a fan.
“You have to be very strong to play two legs and to play with the mental side of it. I think the one leg is better for the outsider, if you are an outsider you play a single match and anything can happen, but I like the big pressure of the two legs,” the Portuguese said.
“And it also measures your resilience because you play the semi-final and two or three days later you have a big match in your domestic league, and you have to cope with all these things.
“You have to make big decisions and across the season as a whole, I prefer the double leg.”
