When Charlie Cresswell left Leeds United for Toulouse last summer, this was the sort of challenge the young defender was looking for upon taking the difficult decision to bring the curtain down on a decade in West Yorkshire.
Paris Saint-Germain at the Stadium de Toulouse.
For a player who had spent his senior career largely in the second-tier of English football – with Leeds United and during a loan spell at Millwall – the chance to test his mettle against some of Europe’s hottest prospects [Desire Doue and Bradley Barcola], a £58 million superstar [Khvicha Kvaratskhelia] and the continent’s most in-form forward [Ousmane Dembele] was the stuff of dreams.
Well, that was the idea.
Had PSG maintained their stunning recent form at Toulouse – Luis Enrique’s team won ten of their first 11 matches in 2025 with Dembele scoring a remarkable 15 goals in that spell – Charlie Cresswell’s afternoon could very conceivably have turned from a ‘dream’ into a nightmare.
Though it was partly thanks to another eye-catching display from the former Leeds youth captain that Dembele’s scoring streak came to an end – albeit he only played the final half hour off the bench – while PSG had to settle for a hard-fought 1-0 win on the road.
After Cresswell scored his first Ligue 1 goal last week, this was another milestone on his footballing journey.
Former Leeds United starlet Charlie Cresswell shines against PSG
Kvaratskhelia started in the central, false nine role in place of the rested Dembele.
Leeds famously tried to sign Kvaratskhelia while in Russia with Rubin Kazan. Long before he would become a household name and a Serie A champion at Napoli.
And, in the battle between a former Leeds target and a former Leeds prospect, it was Cresswell who arguably came out on top.
“In the axis of the Toulouse defence, [Cresswell] was simply correct,” French publication Maxifoot write with PSG needing a second-half winner from Fabian Ruiz.
“Faced with a rather direct Kvaratskhelia, the Englishman held his own.”
Maxifoot, tellingly, handed the £58 million January signing from Napoli a ‘4/10’. Crediting Cresswell for keeping a ‘timid’ Kvaratskhelia on the periphery.
If only the Preston-born powerhouse had been a little more accurate at the other end – he headed straight at PSG goalkeeper Mati Safonov at 0-0 – then a coming-of-age performance from Cresswell in Ligue 1 could have been capped by a famous goal.
Cresswell frustrated but he’s making big strides in France
The eventual winner did come from a set-piece situation in the second-half. Ruiz was quickest to react after William Pacho had struck the bar.
“The fact that they scored from a corner is really frustrating.” Cresswell sighed, Toulouse’s valiant effort counting for little in the grand scheme of things.
Yet, in what is turning into a breakout season in one of Europe’s major leagues for a man who played only five times for Leeds in England’s second-tier last season, that Cresswell is already coming away from an impressive performance against the runaway French leaders feeling he deserved more is testament to his development as a footballer and as a man over recent months.
No one in Toulouse colours made more than his five clearances on the night.
There is still considerable room for improvement, of course. Cresswell recorded a 65 per cent pass completion rate with Maxifoot noting that he handed possession back to PSG on a number of occasions.
But outperforming Kvicha Kvaratskhelia only months into his Ligue 1 career can never be a bad sign.
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