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Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal contest an exciting Champions League final today.
PSG, the reigning European champions, face off against Premier League winners Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary.
Why do I get the feeling Arsenal will find a way to frustrate PSG and maybe blunt their attack? Is that even possible? I don’t know — but Arteta should look straight to the Arsenal Women playbook from last season’s Champions League final, when they ground out a 1-0 win against favourites Barcelona to everybody’s surprise.
This feels like it could be a similar smash and grab if Arsenal are to succeed.
PSG have so many ways of hurting you that defending well is only part of the puzzle — you also have to be ruthless when the chance comes to attack Luis Enrique’s side. Arsenal will make a game of it, but I cannot see them outscoring PSG.
I predicted Arsenal to win the moment the last-16 draw was made, so I’ll stick with that — more out of consistency than conviction. Technically and creatively, PSG are a class above, but if there’s one team who might have the defensive strength to frustrate them, it’s Arsenal.
Among the many prominent American Arsenal fans is New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is currently riding a sports high. Not only is he a lifelong Gunner diehard, but New York’s most prominent NBA team, the Knicks, are getting ready to play in their first NBA Finals since 1999. Plus, the New York City area will play host to the 2026 World Cup final in July.
Mamdani took some time out of his schedule to pen a guest column for The Athletic on what it meant for him to watch Arsenal lift the Premier League trophy — and what it would mean to watch them list the Champions League trophy today.
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Zohran Mamdani: For Arsenal, the nostalgia of the past has become the beauty of the present
Arsenal’s Champions League final with Paris Saint-Germain this weekend feels like a fitting end to the season in the wider football landscape.
The newly-crowned champions of England meet the newly-crowned (yet again) champions of France but, more importantly, their match in Budapest, Hungary, today (Saturday) is arguably the most intriguing tactical battle we could have hoped for.
Luis Enrique’s side are looking to retain the title with a fluid attacking unit based on relentless rotations, particularly across their forward line. Meanwhile, Mikel Arteta’s Londoners have found success based on rock-solid defensive foundations and a set-piece threat few teams in European football can match.
Styles make fights, with the contest at the Puskas Arena likely to look significantly different from PSG’s semi-final with Bayern Munich — one of the best two-legged ties in the past decade — where the two sides went toe-to-toe, particularly in a first leg that finished 5-4 to the Frenchmen, both playing with an aggressive, swashbuckling style that was fraught with calculated risk.
Expect a slightly cagier affair in the final. This is not quite unstoppable force meets immovable object, but it’s pretty damn close.
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Arsenal have the defence, Paris Saint-Germain have the attack: Which wins you the Champions League?
Since the dawn of the Champions League era in 1992, no team has played more than 200 games in the competition without hoisting a Champions League trophy of their own.
Except one: Arsenal.
They have played 225 Champions League matches entering today, over 30 more than the team with the next-highest match total without a trophy — Atletico Madrid, who Arsenal defeated in the semi-final.
Welcome to the Puskas Arena. First impressions: that's an awful lot of concrete.
Exactly three hours until kick-off and it feels like the calm before the storm — hopefully not literally. It's sunny, a bit muggy actually. Right, that's enough of the weather. Roll on the football.
I know this is supposed to be an exercise in creativity and imagination, but the strength of both PSG and Arsenal lies in their connections, and the deep sense of understanding through each team. The most effective combined XI, therefore, keeps most of those relationships intact.
In defence, the shot-stopping brilliance of Raya cannot be separated from the stubborn centre-back partnership that has protected him all season long. Gabriel and Saliba complement each other brilliantly; while one scraps, blocks and clears, the other sweeps, covers and builds with the ball. Both are equally strong in the tackle and imposing in the one-vs-one situations when called upon.
Either side of them, Mendes and Hakimi crash forward and track back in sync, and both are attuned to the other’s position in Luis Enrique’s fluid system. Rice brings his athleticism and protective presence in midfield, while Vitinha and Neves constantly pass and move, pulling the opposition apart and creating the spaces into which Rice can stride.
Doue and Dembele also drop into midfield, while Kvaratskhelia is his usual destructive self off the left, rounding off a nightmare of rotations and raw running power that tempts defences out of their shape before smashing through.
You could argue Saka has the talent to break into the front three, or that Pacho could step into the back four. But let’s not break up what has ultimately powered these two sides into this season’s final — a watertight defence and a free-flowing attack.
In goal, Safonov has impressed since dislodging summer signing Lucas Chevalier in December — and was outstanding in their victory over Lens that sealed the Ligue 1 title — but the Russian is still behind the imperious Raya in the combined pecking order.
PSG’s dynamic full-backs have to start. In central defence, Saliba and Gabriel edge out Marquinhos and Pacho, although Gabriel must be alert to cover the space left behind by Mendes’s lung-bursting runs forward.
Neves and Vitinha can dictate the play from midfield, allowing the tireless Rice to push further forward. The England midfielder also has that deadly set-piece delivery in his armoury.
Up front, Saka, Dembele and Kvaratskhelia have all missed games this season through injury. But, now fully fit, they offer a perfect blend of trickery, explosive pace and end product.
Arguably Arsenal’s player of a title-winning season, Raya gets the nod over PSG’s Matvey Safonov in goal, and is protected by his centre-back pairing of William Saliba and Gabriel.
The pair have been such a solid duo at the back for Arsenal this season and have such a high level of understanding between each other (not to mention the threat they offer at set pieces) that, despite Marquinhos and Pacho having strong claims, I’m keeping them together. PSG’s flying full-backs are integral to the French side’s attacking prowess and pose a bigger threat than whomever Arsenal opt for at full-back.
Rice looked exhausted a few weeks back but returned to form as the season reached its climax. He deserves his spot in midfield alongside Vitinha and Neves, who work so well together for PSG.
The defending champions’ front three is deadly in attack. So, while my heart says Saka makes it, my head has gone with Doue alongside Dembele and Kvaratskhelia, whose speed, touch and technique have made him one of the best players to watch this season (although probably not for Arsenal fans in this final).
Is it wrong to copy Nick’s homework? I ran into the same dilemma at centre-back. Pacho was exemplary in the second leg against Bayern and limited Harry Kane to just five touches in the opposition box, so I’m crowbarring the Ecuador international in.
Rice is an 8-out-of-10 in nearly every action English football asks from its midfielders. Vitinha is perhaps the best central midfielder in the middle third. Readers might have grown bored of me saying Joao Neves’ aerial anticipation and ball-winning bear an eerie similarity to peak-level N'Golo Kante, but the 21-year-old is a footballing genius. I would like Portugal coach Roberto Martinez to stop playing him at right-back, though. I hope Neves never signs for Manchester City, or opposition teams are doomed.
If Nick is saying sorry for leaving out Doue, then I will apologise for leaving out Saka. I adored this piece Phillip Lahm wrote last year, in which he described how he would try to stop the Arsenal man. The hamstring injury and surgery have taken a little off his game this season, but I have faith he’ll be back to his very best next year.
There is a real temptation to just say the combined XI is ‘PSG with Raya in goal’. But, aside from that not really entering into the spirit of things, there are good arguments for a little more variety.
You could drop Arsenal’s central defence into the team as a pair, but Willian Pacho was so good in the second leg of the semi-final against Bayern Munich that he squeaks into my team ahead of Marquinhos and Gabriel. Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes pick themselves at full-back.
It’s also a bold call to break up the passing trio in PSG’s midfield, but it’s worth getting Rice in there for a point of difference and a bit of physicality. Equally, you could just choose the defending champions’ attack, and I feel like I should seek out Desire Doue to personally apologise for leaving him out. But at his best, Bukayo Saka is just as effective, and a left-footer balances the attack out nicely.
It's a fun exercise we like to do that’s also an insightful look into how our various European football writers at The Athletic rate the elite talent on the pitch today — construct a starting XI out of the current Arsenal and PSG rosters.
Five of our staffers — Nick Miller, Carl Anka, Sarah Shephard, Tom Burrows and Thom Harris — did just that. You can read their combined XIs for yourself here, or stay tuned as we bring them your way over the next hour. Take it away, guys…
As both PSG and Arsenal can well attest, winning the Champions League just once is hard enough. Winning in back-to-back years, as PSG aim to do today?
Nearly impossible.
Only one team in the Champions League era has ever won back-to-back trophies. That would be Real Madrid’s famous threepeat from 2016-18, featuring a superstar-laden side headlined by Cristiano Ronaldo.
You have to go much further back in European Cup history to find other back-to-back winners, including AC Milan (1989-90), Nottingham Forest (1979-80), Bayern Munich (1974-76), Ajax (1971-73) and Inter Milan (1964-65).
Real Madrid also accounted for five of its record 15 European Cup/Champions League trophies with a still-unmatched run of five straight titles from 1956-60.
It’s only been three years since the last time a team won the Premier League and Champions League titles in the same year, and Arsenal fans likely aren’t fond of revisiting that, as Manchester City overtook an Arsenal side that led the league for most of the season while also finally conquering Europe in the 2022-23 club campaign.
But such a feat is extremely rare in English football, only accomplished three times in the Premier League/Champions League era — and only five times in total if we include the broader European Cup era dating back to the 1950s. Here’s the full list of English teams to win domestic and European Cup titles in the same year:
Before settling into tonight’s action in Budapest, be sure to test your football knowledge with our 10-question Champions League final quiz!
Find out how well your knowledge of these two teams and this competition’s history stacks up against our expert.
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Champions League final quiz: Test your knowledge ahead of PSG-Arsenal
As mentioned earlier, Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke is the owner of several major U.S. sports teams, several of which along with Arsenal are directly overseen by his son Josh, who serves as co-chair of the club’s board with Stan.
And it has been a glorious decade for Stan Kroenke’s clubs on both sides of the Atlantic. You know about Arsenal’s 2025 Premier League triumph (after several years of near-misses), but here’s a brief recap of success from Kroenke’s U.S.-based teams:
A Champions League trophy to go with a Premier League trophy, Lombardi (Super Bowl) Trophy, Larry O’Brien (NBA) Trophy and Stanley Cup would make for quite the collection! But lest you think that the U.S. accolades took some anxiety out of Arsenal’s Premier League run-in, Josh Kroenke recently made it clear to James McNicholas that the opposite was in fact true for him.
As The Athletic first noted when the match-up was confirmed, this year is just the fourth European Cup/Champions League final between teams from two different capital cities — and the first since since 1971:
Arsenal owner and co-chairman Stan Kroenke also owns several prominent American sports teams, including the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, and was responsible for the construction of their current home stadium (which he also owns) in Inglewood, Calif. That stadium, normally called SoFi Stadium but renamed Los Angeles Stadium for FIFA sponsorship reasons, will host all Los Angeles-area matches in this summer’s World Cup.
That includes a Group G match between Belgium and Iran, where Belgian Arsenal winger Leandro Trossard will likely feature.
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