PSG needed four attempts to win a Ligue 1 game, and Ferran Torres settled it in five minutes
The French and European champions had two points from three league matches before Sunday night in Brittany. A 25-yard finish inside five minutes finally ended that.
Sep 14, 2026
It took Paris Saint-Germain until the middle of September to win a league match. The champions of France and of Europe went to Brest on Sunday with two points from three Ligue 1 games and came away with a 1-0 that was settled inside five minutes.
João Neves found Ousmane Dembélé on the edge of the box, Dembélé slid it square, and Ferran Torres hit it first time from around 25 yards into the bottom corner. That was the match. PSG spent the next 85 minutes defending it.
Six goals in five games for a 50 million euro striker
Torres has now scored six times in his first five competitive appearances for PSG, which matches what Zlatan Ibrahimović managed after arriving in 2012. Not a bad return for a forward Barcelona were willing to sell.
He cost 50 million euros in August and signed for five years, and the pull was obvious enough: Luis Enrique picked him for Spain and clearly rates him. A month before the move, Torres scored the 106th-minute goal at MetLife Stadium that beat a ten-man Argentina and won Spain the World Cup. He has carried that form into Paris without a pause.
Dembélé set the goal up, continuing his influential start to the season as PSG’s chief creator.
A night Brest had planned for months
The football was almost secondary at Francis-Le Blé. Éric Roy, who managed Brest until his death on June 17 at the age of 58, was honoured before kick-off. His family revealed afterwards that he had been living with pancreatic cancer for three and a half years while doing the job, and had told almost nobody.
Club president Denis Le Saint, general manager Pascal Robert and Roy’s widow Loetitia laid a wreath at his mural. The players warmed up in “King Eric” shirts made by Ultras Brestois 1990. Marquinhos, Luis Enrique and Luis Campos came across from the PSG side to stand with them.
Roy took a club with one of the smallest budgets in Ligue 1 to third place and into the Champions League, and was named the division’s manager of the season for it. Brest supporters were never going to let that pass quietly.
Safonov kept it at 1-0
Brest were the better side for long stretches after the goal. Doumbia struck the post in the second half after a mistake by Nuno Mendes, and Locko had the ball in the net before it was ruled out for a push by Warren Zaïre-Emery.
Matvey Safonov made the difference. By expected goals he denied 1.62 goals over the 90 minutes, the best figure by a PSG goalkeeper since Gianluigi Donnarumma’s 2.00 against Nantes in February 2024. On a night when the champions were second best for an hour, their goalkeeper was the reason the scoreline held.
Where it leaves both of them
PSG go to five points from four matches, seventh, five behind Lille, Monaco and Rennes at the top. Two points from three games had been their worst start to a season since 2007-08, a year they finished 16th, so the win matters more for what it stops than for what it starts.
For Brest it was a first defeat of the season, and a continuation of something older. They have not beaten Paris in a competitive match since January 1985, a run now stretching to 35 games. On the balance of play they deserved better on Sunday. They will have to keep waiting.