Luis Enrique has won back-to-back Champions Leagues by building Paris Saint-Germain around control, and control begins with the two men in the middle of the back four. Working out who the PSG centre-backs are in 2026/27 means working through five names: Marquinhos, Willian Pacho, Illia Zabarnyi, Lucas Beraldo and Lucas Hernandez. Between them they cover a club captain, two Ballon d’Or nominees, a Brazilian still growing into the shirt, and a France international who can slide out to left-back when Paris need him there.
It is also a group under more scrutiny than at any point in the Luis Enrique era. Paris are winless in Ligue 1 after three matches — 2-2 at Rennes, 2-2 at Lille and a 2-1 defeat to Monaco — and Get French Football News reported that the side’s defensive frailties are “raising questions”. Seven goals conceded across those three league games is not the profile of European champions. Here, then, is the full picture of who Paris have at the back, and what each of them brings.
Marquinhos (No.5) — the captain and the constant
Everything at the back still runs through the captain. Marquinhos wears No.5, leads the side out, and remains the reference point for a defence that has changed a great deal around him. He is one of the nine Parisians nominated for this year’s Ballon d’Or, which tells you how his part in a second successive European Cup was read from the outside.
He has also been useful at the other end. His late header at Lille on 28 August was what rescued a point in a game Paris looked like losing. Read more on the man who wears the armband at the Parc.
Willian Pacho (No.51) — the aggressive one
Pacho has become the modern half of the pairing: quick across the ground, comfortable defending high up the pitch, and the kind of centre-half a Luis Enrique side needs when the full-backs are pushed as far forward as Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes are. The Ecuadorian is the other centre-back on the 30-man Ballon d’Or list, and Ousmane Dembélé named him as a player who belongs in the wider conversation for the award.
The start of this season has been harder. Pacho and Marquinhos were the pairing that began the Monaco defeat, and L’Équipe handed out a 4 and a 5 respectively — part of a brutal set of marks across the team. Our profile of Pacho and how he fits the system goes deeper.
Illia Zabarnyi (No.6) — the aerial option
Zabarnyi arrived as the sort of centre-half Paris had lacked for years: a Ukraine international with genuine presence in both boxes, a defender who reads a cross rather than reacting to it. He wears No.6, and in a squad this deep he is the alternative that changes the shape of the defence rather than simply replacing a like-for-like part.
For a side conceding as freely as Paris have this month, that profile matters. More on what Zabarnyi was signed to fix.
Lucas Beraldo (No.4) — the one still learning
Beraldo is the youngest of the five and the one whose PSG career is still being written. The Brazilian took the No.4 shirt and has been used across a title-winning, European-Cup-winning squad without ever quite nailing down a starting place — which, in a group containing two Ballon d’Or nominees, is less a criticism than a description of the queue in front of him.
His value to Luis Enrique is that he is a left-sided centre-half, and left-sided centre-halves are the rarest thing in the position. If Paris rotate as heavily this season as they did last, he will play.
Lucas Hernandez (No.21) — the hybrid
Hernandez is the reason PSG’s defensive numbers are harder to count than they look. The France international can play centre-back or left-back, and Luis Enrique has never been shy about moving players between the two. He wears No.21, and with Lucas Digne having completed his return from Aston Villa in August, the competition for minutes on that side of the pitch is real.
The short version: Hernandez is depth in two positions at once. Read our full profile of him.
How the PSG centre-backs shape up
Five senior options for two shirts, with Hernandez covering a third. That is a squad built for a season that runs from a Champions League defence — the league phase opens against Yaya Touré’s Slovan Bratislava on Wednesday — through Ligue 1 and on to the FIFA Intercontinental Cup final on 16 December.
What it has not been so far is a settled or a solid one. Luis Enrique himself did not sugar-coat the wider picture: “If we’re just talking about results, it’s been a disastrous start to the season,” he told a press conference, before adding that “there are things to improve, but we deserve more points.” Paris sit seven points behind Monaco after three games, per Get French Football News.
The reassuring part, for anyone watching through their hands, is that this is a defence that has been picked apart in September before and still had the European Cup in its hands in May. Twice. The names above are the names who did it. Whether the pairing that ends the season is Marquinhos and Pacho, or Zabarnyi and one of the others, is the question Luis Enrique will spend the autumn answering — and it is worth understanding how his shape asks the back line to defend before judging any of them on a bad month. You can also check the full 2026/27 squad numbers to see where every defender sits.
