PSG attack meets Arsenal defence in UCL final showdown in Budapest

As the hours wind down to Saturday’s Champions League final in Budapest, Paris Saint-Germain’s irresistible attacking force prepares to collide with the defensive steel of Arsenal in an intriguing clash of opposing styles.

PSG coach Luis Enrique said that there were “no favourites” going into the European showpiece against Mikel Arteta’s Premier League champions, and insisted that the devil will be “in the details”.

While the bookmakers do classify the Ligue 1 winners and current Champions League holders as favourites, they also suggest that this is the hardest final to call since 2018, when Real Madrid beat Liverpool.

After ending their 22-year drought for the English title, Arsenal arrived relaxed and confident of making more history, two decades after their singular Champions League final defeat in Paris by Barcelona.

The north London side’s players, including fit-again right-back Jurrien Timber who had been a doubt for the game, took a stroll in Budapest on Saturday morning under cloudy skies taking the edge off the summer heat.

With the game set to kick off earlier than in recent years, at 6pm local time (4pm GMT), that may prove a blessing for the pacy Parisians.

Only one of the two sides has scored in each of the last seven Champions League finals, which may well be the case again at the Puskas Arena, given Arsenal’s likely approach.

The Gunners, unbeaten in the tournament, have kept nine clean sheets and conceded just six goals. Most expect that they will sit deep and try to punish PSG from set-pieces.

“They deserve to be here,” said PSG’s Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembele, also fit after a calf problem.

“They’re strong pretty much everywhere, whether it’s in attack or in defense, and they’re dangerous on set pieces as well, everybody knows that.”

Arsenal’s first team have played a lot more football this season than their PSG counterparts, but winger Bukayo Saka dismissed the idea his side might pay for their heavier workload.

Both sides insisted they were more motivated than the other to lift the trophy. “It’s bigger,” said Luis Enrique, of his team’s challenge to claim it in back-to-back seasons.

Finally winning the Champions League for Arsenal would mean a lot, not only for the current team, but also players from previous generations who never managed to do it.

Patrick Vieira, a club icon and captain of their ‘invincibles’ side, sent current skipper Martin Odegaard a good luck video.

“It was special, he is a proper club legend for everything he’s done,” said Odegaard, who explained this stage was one he had hoped to reach for his whole life.

“When I started playing football with my friends, in the little pitch next to my house, I was dreaming of this moment.”

Arsenal have lost their past four European finals but Arteta said his team had to “own the moment… (and) write a new chapter” in the club’s history.

Saka said that Gunners great Thierry Henry, part of the 2006 side that lost to Barca, had also messaged him on Friday.

Henry is perhaps the highest profile of the tens of thousands of Arsenal fans travelling to Budapest, many without tickets, enjoying the city’s famous ruin bars and other attractions.

The atmosphere has largely remained calm ahead of the game, with the exception of an incident on Saturday night where several fought with each other in Budapest’s seventh district, which the police are investigating.

Almost 4,000 police officers have been deployed for the game, the largest such security operation in the country’s history.

Beyond adding to Arsenal’s own trophy cabinet, the Gunners can also make history for English football after Aston Villa won the Europa League and Crystal Palace triumphed in the Conference League.

If Arteta’s team win, it would be the first time since the 1989-90 season — when Italy’s AC Milan won the European Cup, Juventus lifted the UEFA Cup and Sampdoria clinched Cup Winners’ Cup glory — that a nation has completed a European hat-trick.

PSG succeeding in Europe alone is significant for France. They would become the only French side with multiple European Cups.

Only Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid have won the trophy back-to-back in the modern era, lifting it three consecutive times between 2016-18.

Of course for the players, the match itself is the focus.

“It’s a match everyone wants to play in, it’s a match everyone watches, and it’s a match you have to win,” said PSG midfielder Joao Neves.