CRAIG HOPE: Paris Saint-Germain have transformed from a team of disconnected superstars to one worthy of respect and admiration - winning the Champions League would provide Kylian Mbappe with his perfect ending

Paris Saint-Germain have been here before - twice in a Champions League semi-final in the past four seasons - but not like this. Not with a team who are, whisper it, likeable. Not with a team who have structure and strategy. And not with a team for whom football, not fame and fantasy, is the sole focus.

There is still Kylian Mbappe, and the flashbulbs that illuminated his presence here in Dortmund on Tuesday night confirmed the circus remains in transit. But the ball jugglers and those elevated on stilts - Neymar and Lionel Messi - are no more. Prize tigers like Sergio Ramos have also been returned to the wild.

‘In the past, PSG was a club of Harlem Globetrotters,' says journalist Dave Appadoo of France Football. ‘There were superstars, but they weren’t involved or invested in the club. The same players, when they arrive in Madrid, Manchester or Munich, they are honoured to be there.

‘For PSG, it was the reverse, it was the club who were honoured to have them. It was not a healthy relationship. It was a show of communication and marketing, not football. It was uncomfortable. Now, fans, the media, it is like, “Oh, we are talking about football”. It is unusual, because PSG are not used to being liked!’

This being PSG, the high-wire act has not been altogether abandoned. Luis Enrique’s side were heading out at the group stage before teen sensation Warren Zaire-Emery rescued a draw against Dortmund, at this very same stadium. They lost at home to Barcelona in the quarter-final first leg and the turnaround in Spain was aided by a home red card. 

Even confirmation of a third straight Ligue 1 title at the weekend needed rivals Monaco to lose after PSG drew 3-3 at home lowly Le Havre. But amid the chaos, there has been evidence of cohesion and competence. Spirit, too.

‘The last 10 months, the philosophy has changed,’ says Appadoo, with PSG unbeaten in 32 domestic matches and on course for an historic quadruple. 

‘They have brought in players who are not superstars. They are very good players, but they arrive without the ego. There are no more divas, the emotional drama queens. The new structure of the dressing-room, with a good coach who has clear, football ideas, has made the change possible.

‘Before that, for any coach - Unai Emery, Thomas Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino, Christophe Galtier - it was impossible to manage, to coach.’

Ahead of last season’s round-of-16 tie with Bayern Munich, Neymar met the press at Parc des Princes. I was there. He bounced into the media auditorium with his mega-watt smile and diamond earring. Over his shoulder, however, was a bag of dirty linen. He seemed to revel in hanging it out for the world to see, confirming reports of a dressing-room showdown with sporting director Luis Campos and then launching a hunt for the squad mole. Next to him, the muted coach Galtier may as well have held the washing line. They lost 1-0 to Bayern the following night and 2-0 in the second leg.

I was also present in the same auditorium at Lionel Messi’s unveiling in August 2021, and seemingly far happier than the Argentine to be so. It was not so much an unveiling as a concealing of the truth. He wanted to be in Barcelona, not Paris. It was, on reflection, entirely appropriate that he walked in wearing a mask.

PSG twice exited this competition at the last-16 stage with Messi and so, after 13 years of Qatari ownership, defeat to Bayern in the final of 2020 remains their best return. Critics of the state-funded project have salivated at their European drought and, while PSG will never be universally loved, there is at least now respect and admiration for those on the pitch, and in the dugout.

French newspaper L’Equipe on Tuesday declared: ‘The new star of PSG is Luis Enrique. With the departures of Messi, Neymar and soon Mbappe, Luis Enrique has become the main incarnation of the PSG project’.

At Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park on Tuesday night, the Spanish boss met the media in typically feisty mood. One reporter stated that PSG were big favourites to win. ‘It shows the press doesn’t know much about football,’ replied Enrique. He laughed, but he wasn’t joking.

Enrique is confrontational, yet fiercely protective of his players. ‘He doesn’t take any s***,’ says one source. Striker Gonçalo Ramos spoke of a ‘family’. The days of Messi and marriages of inconvenience are over.

That is off the field. On it, there is the midfield mastery of Vitinha, who had an unremarkable loan spell at Wolves three years ago. There is the rebirth of winger Ousmane Dembele, a £117m flop at Barcelona, a £42m star at PSG.

Then there is Mbappe, who is set to quit for Real Madrid this summer. The irony, after six years at the club, is that this is finally the team in which he wanted to play.

‘This team, it is the perfect match with a superstar like Kylian, who wants to win above all,’ says Appadoo. ‘He is not like Neymar. He is a strict professional. It is a shame he will now be leaving. It would be the perfect ending were he to do so by winning the Champions League.’

An ending for Mbappe, perhaps, but this feels like the start of something new for the club he leaves behind.