Hello all, welcome back to the blog. The Christmas season is here, and with it comes the end of another calendar year in football. This time in football is almost as good as Christmas, as you can look back and analyze all that happened across the year of football, reminisce and look forward to the new year.
In today’s post we’ll be looking over the defining moments of 2025, some of the biggest trends, and what this year will be remembered for. Tonight, let’s look back at the great year of 2025.
PSG-Mania
2025 was the year of PSG. The squad, composed of an entire starting XI of stars, won six trophies across the year, and there was hardly a big team they failed to beat. 2025 PSG will likely be remembered as perhaps football’s most feared team since the old Barcelona and Madrid teams of the Messi/Ronaldo era.
It all started on March 11, 2025, after this PSG team beat Champions League 1-seed Liverpool on penalties. PSG then went to Aston Villa and won in the quarters, then beat a great Arsenal team in the semis, and thrashed Inter 5-0 in the Champions League final, starting the best of their run. Then, we went to the Club World Cup, where Atleti was smashed 4-0, Bayern was beat 2-0, and Real Madrid beat 4-0. PSG didn’t just win these games, they dominated them. This team seemed so far above everybody in the world of football, and they proved it. Their unbeaten run ended after a 3-0 loss to Chelsea in the final, but continued after a comeback win on penalties in the Super Cup.
They would then beat Barcelona 2-1 with a last-minute winner, although both teams were massively depleted. They would lose again, this time to Bayern, 2-1, and then would smash Spurs 5-3 in another thriller. The sheer fear of PSG and the aura that 2025 team had, the kits, the kickoff, the players, everything was perfect. They capped it off recently, winning the Club World Cup to cement their sextuple, one of just a handful of teams to achieve one. We would then see 9 PSG players in the Ballon D’Or shortlist, and 5 in the top 10. This was one of the best calendar years any club has ever had.
The First Ever Club World Cup
2025 also saw the first installment of the new Club World Cup format, the new club tournament to happen every four years. While it faced loads of criticism, it was in fact a very fun tournament, many games that were very, very fun and some great surprises.
One of my favourite games was Al-Hilal’s 4-3 upset against Man City, a thrilling game that went to extra time, and saw me staying up until 11 at night for a football match, maybe the first time I’ve ever done that. The Club World Cup saw many incredible moments, including Messi’s last major worldwide moment at club level, capping it off with an epic free kick in matchday 2 to seal a win against Porto.
Another memorable moment was the delay of Chelsea vs Benfica 3-4 hours, sparking a crazy extra time period where Chelsea smashed the Portuguese club. There were so many great moments like these that just helped to make the first ever Club World Cup memorable.
The Best UCL Tie Ever
This year also saw potentially the best UCL tie we’ve ever seen. Barcelona faced Inter and played out two classics. The first leg, at the Montjuic, saw Inter score in 30 seconds through a Marcus Thuram backheel. Denzel Dumfries then made it two with a great acrobatic goal. Three minutes later, Lamine Yamal would get the ball with his back to goal, dummy two defenders and send an incredible curling effort off the post and in. Two minutes later, he’d send Federico Dimarco flying and slam the ball off the crossbar.
Seven minutes from halftime, a Cubarsi cross would find the head of Raphinha, who put it in the path of Ferran Torres who tapped home an equalizer, and it would go into halftime that way. 2-2. Then, second half started, Denzel Dumfries put Inter up from the corner kick. However, 3 minutes later, from a corner, Raphinha would thunderclart an equalizer in to make it 3-3 from 35 yards, even though it’d go down as an own goal.
Second leg. San Siro. 21st minute. A pass from Dimarco finds Dumfries and breaks the high line. Lautaro makes a run through. Goal. 1-0 Inter. 41st minute. Lautaro in on goal. Cubarsi takes him down in the box. Originally, it looks fine, but it goes to VAR. Cubarsi didn’t get the ball. Inter pen. 2-0. That’s how it goes to halftime.
8 minutes after halftime, Barca attack. Gerard Martin lobs a cross in that finds the foot of Eric Garcia perfectly and it’s 2-1. 56th minute. Martin attacks again, counter. He squares it to Eric, who has an easy tap in, but Sommer somehow gets back to stop it. Still 2-1. 60th minute. Martin lobs in a free kick, which perfectly finds the head of Olmo who levels it. 2-2. 5-5 on aggregate.
Fast forward to minute 87. Barca are throwing themselves at a barely-surviving Inter. It finds Raphinha. He shoots. Saved. The rebound finds him, and this time he makes no mistake. 3-2 Barca, they lead the tie at last, and seem to be making the Champions League final.
92nd minute, another Barca attack. Lamine’s done everything this game but find the back of the net. He takes a swing at it, and it clatters off the post. So close to sealing it. Then, Inter go up the other end, but a pass is intercepted by Martin, is seemingly fouled by Dumfries as he’s dispossesed, Dumfries lays in a cross to centerback turned striker Acerbi who levels it 90 seconds before time. 3-3. 6-6. Extra time.
99th minute. Dumfries cuts in from the right. It’s laid to an Inter player in the box who puts it to Davide Frattesi, who curls it in the bottom corner. 4-3. 7-6. That’s it. Inter take it at the death. As a Barca fan, the most painful loss I’ve ever experienced. However, for the neutral, without a doubt, the best Champions League tie ever. Absolutely incredible.
Liverpool’s Record-Breaking Summer
Despite winning their 20th Premier League title, Liverpool’s early Champions League exit left much to be desired. So, in order to set their sights even higher in 25/26, the Reds spent a record-breaking 482 million euros on summer transfers this summer. They made the 4th, 8th, and 20th most expensive transfers ever, in Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, and Hugo Ekitike. They would spend a further 117m on Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez, and Giovannni Leoni.
For sure, the biggest drama of this all, as well as the whole summer window, was the Alexander Isak saga. At the start of August, just weeks from the start of the season, he didn’t show up for Newcastle training and demanded to be sold to Liverpool. This was after Liverpool had already spent over 300m on transfers for the summer, and it felt seemingly impossible for yet more money to be spent, especially this much. In a saga that felt very much like a child asking his mom for a seemingly massive thing and slowly warming her up to actually giving it to her, the deal progressed incredibly slowly but well for a month, a month which included a match between the two, and ended in a 99th minute winner from 16-year old Rio Ngumoha to finish a thriller of a match. The deal was finally completed on deadline day.
The loss of Diogo Jota
As much as it’ll be remembered for the good, 2025 will equally be remembered for the tragic. This year, the football world experienced one of the greatest losses I can remember in my decade of watching the sport. In the early hours of July 3, 2024, while driving with his brother Andre Silva in Spain, Liverpool forward Diogo Jota lost control of his car and crashed, killing both Jota and his brother.
The response from the world of football was one rarely seen. This was the first time for many fans, including myself, that a footballer we’d watched every week had died in the middle of his career. Football fans of all clubs rallied around Liverpool, Jota’s family, wife, whom he’d married the month before, and two kids.
Despite being in the middle of a big tournament like the Club World Cup, the football world still ground to a halt to mourn the loss. The only positive is that it’s always beautiful to see the football world put aside rivalries and differences to come together. That being said, it’s still an unbelievable tragedy that the football world will never fully recover from. Rest in peace, Diogo and Andre.
Dembele added to Pantheon of Greats
To finish on a high note, the man who added himself to a list that includes Messi, Ronaldo, Modric, Benzema, and Rodri in recent years was Ousmane Dembele. After a scintillating 2025, that culminated in him being the main man for PSG, he ended off the year winning the Ballon D’Or in September.
Dembele beat off competition from the likes of Lamine Yamal, Vitinha, Pedri, and Kylian Mbappe for the award, all of whom finished high. Dembele, despite what I’ve said of him, was a deserving winner of the award.
That’s your summer of football in the year 2025, a kind of ‘Football Wrapped’ for 2025, certainly the most memorable year so far of my life, for football and in life. When I think back on this year, I’ll smile. It was great. I hope it was for you too. If not, 2026 is promising to be even bigger and better. I’m making an ultra-detailed 2026 prediction, hopefully to get out in the coming days. For now though, I’m Jim James, until next time. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!