Scroll through TikTok this week, and the message is clear. The memes are in, the group chats have voted. Safe to say the internet has made its choice. It’s Paris Saint-Germain for almost everyone. Videos captioned “Sorry Arsenal 🫶” are racking up millions of views. Neutral fans are posting PSG edits set to dramatic music. And Arsenal supporters, Premier League champions, unbeaten in 14 Champions League matches this season, are being treated like the uninvited guests at Europe’s biggest party.
The meme energy has been building since the semi-finals. When PSG beat Bayern Munich on a combined aggregate scoreline that resembled a basketball score, jokes about Luis Enrique’s side scoring goals for fun flooded every platform simultaneously. By the time the final was confirmed, the narrative was already written. PSG, the glamorous defending champions chasing history, versus boring, pragmatic, defensive Arsenal.
Even the ticket prices became a meme. With resale prices for seats in Budapest reportedly starting at nothing below €5,000, one PSG supporter captured the mood perfectly online, writing,
“Football is a popular sport…are we talking about the tarot card for tickets to the Champions League final?!”
The post went viral within hours. It did not stop anyone from wanting to be there.
And yet the numbers Arsenal have posted this season demand more than mockery. Arteta’s squad has been unstoppable, posting a flawless 8-0-0 record in the league phase of the Champions League. Across 14 Champions League matches this season—ten wins, four draws, zero defeats. 29 goals scored, six conceded. Nine clean sheets, the most of any side in the competition. This is not a team that has stumbled into a final. This is a team that has dismantled every opponent placed in front of them with quiet, relentless efficiency.
Arsenal fans on social media have hit back at the narrative in the only way they know how: by embracing the underdog tag. “Let them count us out. It’s better that way,” wrote one supporter, in a comment that quickly became one of the most shared responses to the wave of PSG memes. It is the kind of defiant optimism that has defined this Arsenal fanbase all season, mocked for 22 years without a title, mocked as bottlers, and now mocked as the team nobody wants to win in Budapest.
On May 30, Arsenal will be where PSG found themselves at the end of last season, probably the most successful team in Europe not to have lifted the Champions League, the sheer weight of an expectant fanbase threatening to drag them down. Last season, they lost both legs of the semi-final to PSG. This time they are in the final.
PSG are favourites at 7/10. Arsenal are 13/10. The memes have made their choice. Kick-off at the Puskás Aréna is 5 pm BST on Saturday, 30 May. Arsenal fans have a simple message for the rest of the internet—see you in Budapest.
