Three days. That is all that separates Arsenal from the most important match in their 139-year history. On Saturday, 30 May, Mikel Arteta’s Premier League champions travel to the Puskás Aréna in Budapest to face Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Champions League final.
Arsenal return to the Champions League final for the first time in 20 years, having lost to Barcelona 2-1 at the Stade de France in 2006 when a squad led by Thierry Henry was reduced to ten men after Jens Lehmann’s early red card. They have never won the trophy. Saturday is the chance to change that forever.
Only nine teams in history have completed an unbeaten Champions League campaign. Arsenal are now one game from becoming the next. Arteta’s side kept nine clean sheets across the competition, conceded just four goals in the league phase, and dismantled some of the finest clubs in Europe without losing a single match. The numbers are extraordinary. The occasion is even bigger.
Standing in their way are the defending champions. PSG, who beat Internazionale to lift the trophy for the first time last year, can become only the second team to retain the Champions League since the competition was rebranded in 1992, after Real Madrid, who won three in a row between 2016 and 2018. Luis Enrique has transformed this PSG side completely.
Their 44 goals this campaign leave them one shy of Barcelona’s 1999/2000 all-time single-season record, with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia at the heart of that momentum—ten goals and six assists across the campaign, seven of those strikes coming in the knockouts as he hits top form. The Georgian winger, who Arsenal have been heavily linked with in the summer transfer window, will be the most dangerous man on the pitch on Saturday.
Then there is the Dembélé question. The reigning Ballon d’Or winner suffered a calf scare in PSG’s final Ligue 1 game against Paris FC, forcing Luis Enrique to substitute him inside the first half hour. Arsenal fans dared to hope. But Dembélé himself confirmed to RMC Sport that he will be fit for the final, saying,
“I’m doing very well. I had a slight scare against Paris FC, but I’m fine, and I’ll be ready for the final.”
He added that with so much at stake, he had no intention of risking his fitness and that he would be in Budapest ready to play.
For Arsenal, the injury picture is more settled than it has been for months. Jurrien Timber has suggested there is hope of him being fit for the final, while Mikel Merino has returned to full training. Bukayo Saka, who scored the only goal against Atlético Madrid in the semi-final second leg, is fit and in form at exactly the right moment. Declan Rice, named Player of the Match on that same night, arrives in Budapest as one of the most in-form midfielders in Europe.
There is recent history between these sides, too. They met in the semi-finals last season, PSG winning both legs 3-1 on aggregate en route to dismantling Inter 5-0 in the final. Arsenal remembers that night. Every single player in Arteta’s squad remembers it. This is the rematch they have been building towards all season.
