Luis Enrique has won back-to-back Champions Leagues with a Paris Saint-Germain side built on possession, pressure and width, and no group of players carries more of that burden than the PSG full-backs. Working out who plays there in 2026/27 means working through four defenders — Achraf Hakimi, Nuno Mendes, Lucas Hernandez and Lucas Digne — two of whom are on this year’s Ballon d’Or shortlist.
This is the department where Paris are richest, and it is not close. Having already gone through the centre-backs, the midfield and the attack, here is the full picture out wide.
Achraf Hakimi (No.2) — the vice-captain who defines the shape
Hakimi wears the No.2 and is one of Marquinhos’ vice-captains, alongside Vitinha and Ousmane Dembele. In a squad that has been rebuilt twice over in three summers, that combination of seniority and status makes him the closest thing the Paris defence has to a fixed point.
He is also, by the measure that matters most to the wider football world, one of the best in his position anywhere. Hakimi is among the nine Parisiens named on the 30-man shortlist for this year’s Ballon d’Or, per Get French Football News, with the award due to be handed out in Paris on 26 October. Captain Marquinhos, asked about the shortlist, said simply: “I hope that it will be someone from PSG.”
What Hakimi gives Luis Enrique is the right-hand side of a system that asks its full-backs to be the team’s width so the forwards can come inside. Get to know him properly in our profile of Achraf Hakimi.
Nuno Mendes (No.25) — the other Ballon d’Or name
Nuno Mendes takes the No.25 and, like Hakimi, is one of the nine PSG players on the Ballon d’Or list. Two full-backs from the same club on a 30-man shortlist is an unusual thing to see, and it is the clearest signal available of how central these two are to the way Paris win football matches.
His September was interrupted. The Portuguese was suspended and had not featured for the reigning European champions at all this month before the Champions League opener, returning to the 23-man squad Luis Enrique named for the visit of Slovan Bratislava, as Get French Football News reported.
He then made his presence felt inside the opening exchanges of the 6-1 win. It was Nuno Mendes’ shot that cannoned back off the post and into Dembele’s path for the opening goal — a small but characteristic detail, given how often the left-back arrives in the box in this system rather than stopping at the halfway line. Our profile of Nuno Mendes has the full background.
Lucas Hernandez (No.21) — the senior alternative
Hernandez wears the No.21 and is listed among Luis Enrique’s defenders for 2026/27. He was in the 23 for the Champions League opener, a squad from which only third-choice goalkeeper Alessandro Longoni was absent.
His value to this group is depth of a specific kind: a decorated, experienced defender who can be used on the left without the manager having to reach into the academy. In a season with a Champions League defence, a domestic recovery job and a FIFA Intercontinental Cup final in December all to navigate, that matters more than a shirt number suggests. Read more in our profile of Lucas Hernandez.
Lucas Digne (No.12) — the returning Parisian
Digne is the newest of the four and the one with the strangest recent story. He rejoined Paris from Aston Villa in a deal worth around €7m, completed on 10 August 2026 — three days before PSG met Villa in the UEFA Super Cup final and won it 2-1. He was a Paris player for that match, not a Villa one.
A word on his origins, because it is regularly got wrong: Digne is a Lille academy product, not a PSG one. He was born in Meaux, in the Paris region rather than the city itself, and this is now his second spell in the capital. His France career belongs in the past tense; he has not been a regular in recent squads.
His place in the pecking order has already been a talking point this season — we covered the questions around his role under Luis Enrique — but he was named in the Champions League squad, and at 33 he is exactly the sort of signing a club chasing a third consecutive European Cup makes: cheap, senior, and available. Our profile of Lucas Digne goes deeper.
Why the full-backs matter so much to this Paris side
The context sharpens the point. Paris arrived at Champions League matchday one winless in Ligue 1 after three games — a 2-2 draw at Rennes, a 2-2 draw at Lille and a 2-1 defeat by Monaco — seven points behind the early leaders, per Get French Football News. Then came the 6-1 demolition of Yaya Toure’s Slovan Bratislava at the Parc des Princes, with a Ferran Torres hat-trick and a Dembele double.
The difference between those two versions of the same team is largely a question of whether Paris can hold the pitch wide enough to make their central overloads work. That is the full-backs’ job. When Hakimi and Nuno Mendes are both fit, on the pitch and pushing high, Luis Enrique’s structure functions as designed; when one is missing, as Nuno Mendes was for most of the opening weeks, the whole thing narrows.
Which is why two of the nine PSG names on the Ballon d’Or shortlist being full-backs is not a quirk of voting. It is a fairly accurate description of how this team is built. For the wider picture, see our explainer on the Luis Enrique formation and the full 2026/27 squad numbers.
