Arsenal vs PSG in Budapest: the questions that will decide the Champions League final
The bracket is settled. Arsenal will face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest on Saturday, May 30, kick-off 17:00 BST. It is Arsenal's first European Cup final in 20 years and PSG's second in a row, and the questions that will decide it have started taking shape the moment Ousmane Dembélé's third-minute strike sealed the second leg in Munich.
This is the story of two teams arriving from very different directions. PSG come in as defending champions, hardened by a knockout run that included the 5-4 thriller in Paris against Bayern and the 1-1 hold at the Allianz. Arsenal come in lighter on European pedigree but with the kind of disciplined two-legged performance against Atlético Madrid that suggests Mikel Arteta's side has finally grown into European nights.
PSG's road and the Kvaratskhelia question
The Bayern tie was the kind that flatters a defending champion. PSG won 5-4 in Paris, drew 1-1 in Munich, and went through 6-5 on aggregate. Dembélé's early strike at the Allianz made it 6-4 before Bayern needed to fight just to stay in the game; Harry Kane's 94th-minute equaliser was, in the end, only a consolation.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has been the player of the campaign. Ten goals and six assists in the Champions League is a PSG single-season record and pushes him past Dembélé's mark from last year, when the Frenchman put up 8 goals and 6 assists on the way to lifting the trophy in Munich. Stop one of those two and PSG still have the other; stop both and they have Hakimi, Fabián Ruiz, and the depth that comes with being the most-spent club of the past decade.
That is the puzzle Arteta is now staring at for three weeks.
Arsenal arrived through control, not chaos
Arsenal's run to Budapest has been built on the opposite of PSG's high-line, high-stakes football. The Atleti tie was won 2-1 on aggregate, and the deciding goal at the Emirates was a Bukayo Saka tap-in on the stroke of half-time after Atleti had absorbed pressure for most of the night. Saka was four years old when Henry's Arsenal lost the 2006 final to Barcelona in Paris; he is now the player most likely to turn this one Arsenal's way.
Arteta will be 44 years and 65 days old on the day of the final, the second-youngest manager to lead Arsenal in a major European final after Terry Neill in 1980. The team around him has the central spine that played most of the season's biggest games: Saliba and Gabriel at the back, Rice in front, Ødegaard pulling strings, Saka and Martinelli on the flanks. The bench depth has been thinner than PSG's all year, which becomes a question if the final goes long.
What Budapest decides
The Puskás Aréna will host its first Champions League final in front of 67,000, the first time Hungary has staged the showpiece. PSG are the favourite by reputation and last season's medal, Arsenal by run of form: their semi-final shutout of Atléti was a more controlled performance than anything PSG produced against Bayern.
The matchups to watch are obvious enough. Hakimi pushing up from PSG's right against Martinelli on Arsenal's left. Saliba against Dembélé and Kvaratskhelia in transition. Whether Rice can sit on Vitinha and Fabián Ruiz long enough to slow PSG's tempo. Whether Arsenal's set-piece edge, the most reliable of any side left in the competition, opens PSG up the way it has cracked sides all season.
If PSG win, they become the first club to retain the Champions League since Real Madrid's three in a row from 2016 to 2018. If Arsenal win, it is a first European Cup in the club's history. Either way, this is the final the neutrals wanted, and the wait now is just three weeks.
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