Paris Saint-Germain’s Georgian winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has been named the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League Player of the Season, capping a campaign in which he scored 10 goals and six assists and won the penalty that dragged the final back from the brink. The award, decided by UEFA’s Technical Observer Group, lands 16 months after Paris paid Napoli a base fee of €70 million (about $72 million) to sign him in the January 2025 window, a move that has now produced two European crowns in a row.
The 25-year-old beat a strong field that included teammates and a Real Madrid contingent. He is the second straight Paris player to take the honour, following Ousmane Dembélé a year earlier, and his selection turns a transfer once measured in skepticism into one of the clearest wins of the recent market.
A Georgian Winger Tops UEFA’s Season Verdict
UEFA’s panel of former coaches and players judged Kvaratskhelia the standout performer across the full competition, from the league phase through to the May 30 final in Budapest. The numbers behind the verdict are not subtle. He registered a goal or an assist in every knockout-round tie Paris played, and he ran further than almost anyone in the bracket.
His output sat at the top of the attacking charts without ever tipping into stat-padding. Ten goals across the campaign came from genuine knockout pressure, not dead league-phase rubber, and his work rate matched the end product.
- 10 goals and six assists in the 2025/26 Champions League
- 1,141 minutes played across the campaign
- 124.17km covered on the pitch, among the highest in the knockout field
- A goal or assist in every knockout tie Paris contested
Kvaratskhelia takes the prize from Dembélé, who won it after the 2024/25 run. Two consecutive seasons, two different Paris forwards at the top of UEFA’s list, tells its own story about where the attacking weight in this squad now sits. The full citation is laid out in UEFA’s 2025/26 Player of the Season announcement.
The €70 Million Raid That Beat Liverpool and Barcelona
When Paris closed the deal on January 17, 2025, the fee looked steep for a mid-season buy. Kvaratskhelia signed a contract running to June 2029, reported at around €9 million per season, and took the No. 7 shirt left behind by Kylian Mbappé. With performance add-ons, the total outlay could climb toward €80 million.
What is easy to forget now is how contested the signing was. Before Paris moved, the Georgian had been the target of an open chase across Europe’s wealthiest clubs. Our earlier reporting on the Liverpool and Barcelona pursuit of Kvaratskhelia tracked an offer north of €75 million on the table before he chose the French capital.
The bet was never only about the fee. It was about timing. Paris bought a player at the peak of his market value, mid-season, and asked him to integrate into a title defense already underway. That is the kind of gamble that usually gets a sporting director second-guessed for a year.
Instead the return arrived almost immediately. He scored in the 2025 final, a 5-0 demolition of Inter Milan, and has now anchored the left side of a side that has not let go of the trophy since.
A Knockout Run Built on Goals in Every Round
The award case was assembled in the rounds that count. Kvaratskhelia did not coast through the easier ties and disappear when the opposition stiffened; the opposite happened. His best night came in the semi-final first leg, a 5-4 win over Bayern München, where he curled in an equaliser to make it 1-1 before adding a fierce second to complete a double.
The route to the final reads as a steady accumulation of decisive moments:
- Round of 16: three goals across two legs against Chelsea
- Quarter-final: a goal away at Liverpool, the club that had chased him
- Semi-final: a brace in the 5-4 first-leg thriller against Bayern München
- Final: the won penalty that levelled the tie against Arsenal
Five PSG Players Fill UEFA’s Team of the Season
Kvaratskhelia’s individual prize sat inside a wider Paris sweep of UEFA’s end-of-season honours. The champions placed five players in the Technical Observer Group’s Team of the Season, with the winger on the left wing and final Player of the Match Vitinha in midfield.
The individual categories spread a little wider across the continent. Real Madrid’s Arda Güler, the 20-year-old playmaker who created 34 chances over the campaign, was named Revelation of the Season, while his teammate Federico Valverde took Goal of the Season for a flicked volley in a 3-0 round-of-16 first-leg win over Manchester City.
| Award | Winner | Club |
|---|---|---|
| Player of the Season | Khvicha Kvaratskhelia | Paris Saint-Germain |
| Revelation of the Season | Arda Güler | Real Madrid |
| Goal of the Season | Federico Valverde | Real Madrid |
| Final Player of the Match | Vitinha | Paris Saint-Germain |
Beyond Kvaratskhelia and Vitinha, the Team of the Season carried Marquinhos and Nuno Mendes in defence and Dembélé up front. Arsenal contributed three players, David Raya, Gabriel and Declan Rice, with two more from Bayern München and one from Atlético de Madrid rounding out UEFA’s official Team of the Season selection.
The Penalty He Won in Budapest
The final at the Puskás Aréna did not run smoothly for Paris. Arsenal struck first through Kai Havertz inside the opening six minutes, and the holders spent much of the night chasing the game. Kvaratskhelia’s biggest contribution was not a goal but a foul drawn.
On 65 minutes he was brought down by Arsenal defender Cristhian Mosquera, and Dembélé converted the resulting penalty to level the tie at 1-1. The score held through extra time, sending the match to a shootout.
Paris held their nerve from 12 yards, winning the shootout 4-3 after Gabriel saw Arsenal’s fifth attempt fail. The full account of the night sits in our match report on how Paris retained the Champions League against Arsenal. For a player whose season had been built on goals, the decisive act in the showpiece was a piece of work that never reached the scoresheet.
UEFA’s own write-up of the winger’s campaign, published on the club’s player-of-the-season page, leans on exactly that point: consistency in the moments that decided ties.
Back-to-Back Puts Paris in Rare Company
The win on May 30 made Paris the first club since Real Madrid’s 2014 to 2017 run to successfully defend the trophy, a feat no team had managed in the years between. Kvaratskhelia has now featured in both of those Paris triumphs, scoring in the first and shaping the second.
The €70 million debate is settled for now. Two finals, two winners’ medals, an individual season award and a Team of the Season slot make the January 2025 gamble one Paris would take again without hesitation; whether a third title comes is the only question the trophy has left to answer.
