Marquinhos

The season in numbers

2024-25 campaign

Captain of a team that wins the sextuple

Champions League

Starts from round one to final, UEFA Team of the Season

Personal milestone

100th career UCL appearance on February 1, 2025 at Brest

Paris career

12 seasons, more than 500 games, 10 Ligue 1 titles to date

International

Brazil captain since October 2017

Twelve years

Summer 2013. Marcos Aoás Corrêa, known as Marquinhos, leaves AS Roma for Paris for 31 million euros. He is 19, one Serie A season behind him, signing a long-term deal with the Qatari-owned club freshly taken over by QSI two years earlier. The hierarchy presents him as a bet on the future. Thiago Silva is the star defender, he is the heir.

The 'future' takes twelve years to write in full. Between 2013 and 2024, Paris win nine Ligue 1 titles and seven Coupe de France trophies with him in defence. In Europe, the club runs into the same wall eight times. One final lost in 2020. Two semi-finals lost. Five round-of-16 or quarter-final exits, many of them spectacular. Every single time, Marquinhos is on the pitch. From 2020 on, when Thiago Silva leaves for Chelsea, he is the captain.

The question he gets asked most often in spring interviews is why he stays. He has had offers. He has had the right to leave. He chose to continue. The contract signed in May 2023, running to June 2028, settles the question publicly: Marquinhos wants to win this trophy in Paris.

The doors that closed

To measure what lifting the trophy in Munich means for Marquinhos, you have to remember the matches he lost first. 2016-17, round of 16 second leg, Camp Nou, 1-6. Historic remontada, PSG waste a 4-0 first-leg lead. 2018-19, round of 16, Manchester United go through on a stoppage-time penalty at the Parc. 2019-20, Paris's first ever Champions League final, in Lisbon. 0-1 to Bayern, Coman scoring for the city he grew up in. He is the Brazilian who defended for 90 minutes and lost for nothing.

2020-21, semi-final against Manchester City, 1-2 then 0-2. 2021-22, round of 16 at the Bernabéu, Benzema hat-trick in seventeen minutes. 2022-23, round of 16 against Bayern, 0-1 at the Parc, 0-2 in Munich. 2023-24, semi-final against Dortmund, 0-1 at home, 0-1 in Germany. Eight campaigns, eight eliminations. Some brutal, some merely cruel.

Every spring, supporters and the press redraw the list. Every summer, Marquinhos re-signs, re-extends, carries the armband the year after. The routine of loyalty, by now almost a sensitive subject in the dressing room. 'There are people who came through here and didn't manage it. My idol Thiago, Lucas, Zlatan, Cavani, Di María,' he will say in Munich, dedicating the title to those who couldn't.

Key moments

Five moments from a 12-year Paris career, closed on a trophy that eight previous eliminations had always pushed out of reach.

1. 2013-07-16

   Signs from AS Roma

   Paris sign him at 19 for 31 million euros after one season in Rome. He is introduced as the future of the defence, Thiago Silva still the dressing-room star.

2. 2020-08-23

   Lisbon, 0-1 Bayern, final lost

   PSG's first ever Champions League final. Kingsley Coman, a former PSG academy product, scores the only goal. Marquinhos plays 90 minutes and leaves empty-handed.

3. 2025-02-01

   Brest, 100th Champions League appearance

   3-0 at Brest, playoff stage. Marquinhos reaches his 100th career Champions League appearance. First player in PSG history to hit that mark in the same shirt.

4. 2025-05-31

   Munich, Pastore hands him the trophy

   Final won 5-0. Javier Pastore, QSI's first major 2011 signing, carries the trophy out. He hands it to Marquinhos. The captain lifts it, the first to do so in the Qatari era.

5. 2025-06-01

   'Twelve years of hardship'

   On M6, Marquinhos delivers the line that will travel: 'It's been 12 years of hardship and suffering. I suffered, but I grew up with this team.'

The campaign, at last

February 1, 2025, Brest. Paris cruise 3-0, then 7-0 in the return leg. A quiet line drops into the match stat block: Marquinhos has just played his 100th Champions League match. First player in PSG history to reach that total in the same shirt.

At Anfield, round of 16 second leg, he will not take a penalty in the shootout. He was booked late in the match. Vitinha, Ramos, Dembélé, Doué handle it. Donnarumma sees off Núñez and Jones. Paris go through. Across the whole campaign, Marquinhos plays every match and every minute that counts, partnering Pacho and then at times Beraldo. He ends the season in the UEFA Team of the Season.

May 31, 2025, Allianz Arena. Before kick-off, a 31-year-old Brazilian defender stares at the stadium roof. L'Équipe, at full time, will rate him 7 out of 10, flagging a 'covering move' at 40, an interception at 46, a controlled duel against Lautaro Martínez at 45. He plays 90 minutes, picks up no card, and at the final whistle, Paris lead 5-0. He and Pacho hand the team a clean sheet in the final.

Munich, the trophy

Before the ceremony, Javier Pastore is brought up on stage to carry the trophy. Pastore was QSI's first major signing back in 2011, 42 million euros from Palermo. He never won the Champions League in Paris. He smiles, carries the cup, steps down, places it in front of Marquinhos. The Athletic summed up the scene: 'Pastore handed it over, no doubt wishing he was the one lifting it up into the Munich sky, not PSG skipper Marquinhos.' Marquinhos takes it with both hands, lifts it up. He is the first.

In the mixed zone, on Canal+: 'I've got nothing left, I've given everything. I love this team. The supporters are proud of us. Enjoy it, lads, I love you.' To M6, the other line that will travel: 'It's been 12 years of hardship and suffering. It's a mix of joy, and of all the emotions we've lived through together. I suffered, but I grew up with this team.' On PSG TV: 'We wanted to win it our way.' On beIN: 'It's the best day of my life.'

Some career moments are played out across half a season. Twelve years is something else. It is a full cycle. Marquinhos waited a full cycle to lift the trophy. What comes next is his to decide. His contract runs to 2028.