Ligue 1 season awards: the big hits, misses, shocks and flops of 2025-26

Best player: Vitinha, PSG “I like feeling the match go through me,” said Vitinha at the end of December. It’s an apt way for the 26-year-old to interpret his role at PSG, given that everything the team produces on the pitch involves him in some way or another. He was the only PSG player to be a regular presence in the league and Champions League, missing only a handful of matches in April due to a heel injury. With Marquinhos having been spared for the Champions League from February onwards, the Portuguese midfielder often wore the captain’s armband in the second half of the campaign. PSG’s conductor-in-chief is equally at ease weaving through dense midfields as he is playmaking from a more withdrawn position. He has more often been seen in the latter role in league matches, given that the vast majority of the champions’ opponents set up conservatively. Before Ousmane Dembélé’s move to the centre, it was Vitinha’s retraining as a defensive midfielder that had proved the most impactful of Luis Enrique’s changes since arriving. The manager has rebuilt PSG as a collective unit, but it is Vitinha’s individual talents that allow the rest of the team to shine. RJ Best manager: Pierre Sage, Lens In less than three years, Pierre Sage has ascended from an unassuming, relegation-battling interim manager to being the most in-demand French coach on the market. …