The 121st minute starts when an exhausted Arsenal gets a corner with the score at 1-1. The English crowd cheers – it is only the third corner for Mikel Arteta’s team. Arsenal scored no fewer than 27 times in all competitions this season (28 percent of all goals), and the Londoners even trained there for 45 minutes on a weekly basis. How symbolic would it be if Arsenal did that on Saturday evening underdog holds out much longer than expected in the Champions League final against PSG, scores from a corner in the very last minute and thus becomes the best in Europe for the first time?
But Noni Madueke’s corner is not sharp enough, Bradley Barcola is able to head away. Match over, penalties. Goalkeepers Matvej Saforov and David Raya receive instructions. In the end, the former does not even have to save a penalty kick for his team to win: Arsenal players Eberechi Eze (next) and Gabriel Magalhães (across) miss. PSG, which crushed Internazionale in the final last year (5-0) and made a big impression this season in the semi-final against Bayern Munich, played far from spectacularly, but won the Champions League again.
The final was seen in advance as a clash of styles: PSG, the attacking machine of coach Luis Enrique who plays the most dynamic football in Europe, against Arsenal, which is very strong defensively and becomes dangerous in transition and from set pieces. PSG scored 44 goals this Champions League season, but Arsenal only conceded 6.
Yet PSG are favorites when Arsenal kick off at 6 p.m. in the Puskás Arena in the Hungarian capital Budapest. Not only because the club from Paris is playing so energetically this season with so much individual quality: for Arsenal the final was the 63rd match of the season, for PSG number 56. Moreover, a significant number of the PSG players, including the super trio Ousmane Dembélé, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Désiré Doué, played less than half of all the minutes in Ligue 1.
Arteta did not have that luxury. In the tough Premier League, in which Arsenal was involved in the title battle with Manchester City until match round 37, the Spaniard could hardly rotate.
Completely different situation
However, tactical analyzes in PSG’s favor can quickly go into the trash. In the sixth minute, PSG defender Marquinhos wants to defend, but kicks against Arsenal striker Leandro Trossard. Suddenly the ball ends up with Kai Havertz, who goes alone to goalkeeper Safonov. The German waits a long time, but shoots hard from an awkward angle into the top left corner: 1-0.
PSG finds itself in a completely different situation than a year ago, when the French did not give a chance from the first minute in the Internazionale final. Now Enrique’s team must find an opening against Arsenal, which controls the ball to perfection with the ‘pure’ defenders William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhães.
They show that in the first half; the two defenders constantly blocked PSG’s shots. Arsenal digs in with discipline, the French do not really seem to believe that they will create real chances – not even Golden Ball winner Ousmane Dembélé. Normally he can roam around the field to his heart’s content – as he did against Bayern Munich – and then give well-thought-out passes or become dangerous himself, with left and right. But against Arsenal the space is simply not there. It is telling that PSG’s number of shots on target at halftime – only one – compared to possession (77 percent).
Luis Enrique has to come up with something, but he does not intervene after the break. PSG does look a little fresher: for the first time, successful dribbles from Kvaratskhelia and Doué can be seen, although they are not really dangerous.
At Arsenal, hopes are growing for their first Champions League win – lost in 2006 The Gunners already a CL final. A win would mark the most successful season in the club’s history, after Arsenal won the Premier League for the first time in 22 years last week.
Those hopes were dealt a blow when PSG were awarded a penalty in the 62nd minute after Kvaratskhelia was brought down. Dembélé shoots in. It is also disappointing for Arteta that Arsenal can hardly use its biggest weapon: only in minute 92 does Arsenal get a corner for the first time, while indirect free kicks are also few and far between.
Ousmane Dembélé makes it 1-1 from a penalty.
Photo Reuters
Strange things
Even after the equalizer, the match in a sultry Budapest is not spectacular. Especially not when PSG changes its star players one by one – Kvaratskhelia, (a limping) Dembélé, Vitinha.
Penalties must decide the match. Eze and Gabriel miss their penalty after strange ‘jumps’ in their run-up, PSG doesn’t do crazy things. Arsenal players, including the substitute (and sufficiently fit) Jurriën Timber, are in tears. “It is very difficult to accept when you perform so consistently throughout the tournament,” say Arteta afterwards.
Nevertheless, a ceremony will take place tomorrow in Paris and London: Arsenal will make a bus tour through the north of the city to celebrate the league title. The euphoria will be a lot greater in Paris; PSG appears to be able to win a final even without playing nice football.
