We'll remember it as The Désiré Doué Final

Did you think the UEFA Champions League final was going to be a close game? I sure did! Given how good Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan have been at cagey knockout football (games against Barcelona don’t count), I thought we’d see a low-scoring game with a one-goal margin either way.

Instead what we got was PSG laying a comprehensive 5-0 ass whooping on Inter. And there won’t be too many more finals with a more clear man of the match — Désiré Doué finished with 2 goals and an assist. He had 3 key passes with a full 1 xA. He was by far the game’s leader in StatsBomb’s OBV metric with 1.25, almost double his competition-leading per 90 average of 0.67.

Here’s a very satisfying race chart. Even though Doué scored twice in the game, his biggest contribution was probably his setup for the opener, an easy finish for Achraf Hakimi.

It was a star-making performance for the 19-year-old Doué, who was already very much on a superstar type of trajectory. After the ad, a look at some of his data and how he’s established himself in the PSG squad. Please consider checking out our partner; radars below.

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Last summer, on both the newsletter and podcast, we were pretty big fans of the Doué transfer. He was excellent last season for Rennes, showing some outstanding dribbling and playmaking talent. He performed very well for a 17-year-old in his debut season, and took another step forward in his age 18 campaign.

But as you can see above, he was not yet much of a shooter, and his xG assisted was just OK. While I thought Doué was going to eventually become an excellent player for PSG, I also thought he’d take a season to settle in and adjust to Champions League level before making a much more significant impact next season.

And early on, that’s what appeared to be happening. Doué made some cameo appearances late in uncompetitive games, and missed a few due to a minor injury. His data looked good in small samples, and his highlight plays were outstanding, but he was behind more senior players on the depth chart. Normal stuff.

Luis Enrique clearly started to trust Doué more as the season went on, starting him in more difficult games by December, but he wasn’t a locked-in first choice player yet. He came off the bench in both legs of the Champions League round of 16 tie against Liverpool, with Enrique opting for better defensive players. He started the home leg and sat the away leg of the quarterfinals against Aston Villa. But by the semifinal, he’d established himself as must-start. Doué didn’t record any goals or assists, but consistently looked dangerous with 5 shots, 2 assists, and plenty of dribbling OBV racked up against Arsenal.

No one expects a 19-year-old to take over a Champions League final, but perhaps we should have seen it coming. On a per 90 basis, Doué has arguably been the most productive player in the competition this season. As good as his Ligue 1 stats are, he’s been even better when the lights are brightest and the competition is higher caliber.

The only really surprising aspect of Doué’s development is how quickly he’s become a high-value shooter. He’d shown the dribbling and passing skills at a high level when he was just 17, but he hadn’t previously looked like someone who could frequently get into high-value shooting areas and get shots off from inside the box every single game.

And on top of being a data nerd darling, Doué is doing all this while being one of the most purely entertaining players in the world to watch. He’s got audacious flicks and tricks for days, but they always actually do something too. The thing I really love about Doué is that he consistently uses the mixtape stuff to advance the ball into more dangerous areas and set up high value shooting opportunities.

Doué has already had what would be a career highlight game for any player to ever lace up boots at 19 years old, and there’s an excellent chance he’s only going to get better in the coming years. I’m not going to make any predictions about future records or awards, but this guy is such a gift to football, and I hope we get to watch him do stuff like this for another decade-plus.

—KM

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