L'Équipe has put Willian Pacho at No. 1 at his position ahead of the final, a ranking that underlines how quickly the 24-year-old has gone from a promising signing to one of PSG's most trusted defenders. For a player who arrived in Europe only four and a half years ago, it is the kind of recognition that changes how he is viewed in the game.
It also explains why pacho psg is drawing attention now. Pacho has played 1,440 minutes in the Champions League this season, more than any other defender in the competition by workload alone, and no player has recovered more balls than his 101. He has done it while committing just 19 fouls in 47 matches across all competitions, including eight in the Champions League and three in the first leg of the semifinal against Bayern.
His rise has been a fast one. Antwerp signed him in January 2022 for 3 million euros, sold him 18 months later to Frankfurt for a club-record 16 million euros, and Frankfurt moved him on to PSG in the summer of 2024 for 40 million euros. The CIES has already valued him at 70 million euros, which says as much about the market around him as it does about his own consistency.
The numbers support the ranking, though not without a small caveat. Pacho has won 73 percent of his defensive duels and averages 7.8 defensive actions per 90 minutes, ahead of Gabriel and Gvardiol, who both sit at 6.9, while only Inter's Bastoni at 8.2 and Barcelona's Garcia at 8.3 are higher in that category. But his aerial duel success rate is 53 percent, below Van Dijk at 70 percent, Cubarsi at 60 percent, Gabriel at 60 percent and Ruben Dias at 62 percent, which leaves a gap in a profile that is otherwise among the strongest in Europe.
That balance helps explain why coaches keep trusting him. An analyst cited in the report describes a defender who developed in Belgium, Germany and then at PSG, learning one-to-one duels in Antwerp, transition defending in Frankfurt and high positional defending in Paris. He is not built like a pure impact defender, but he moves well, reads space cleanly and rarely ends up on the turf after a challenge. The final is the next stage, and Pacho now carries the weight of a No. 1 ranking into it.
