The battle for the holy grail of European football: a Parisian double or a new king?

On one side – the Paris club that finally climbed football’s Everest last year and grabbed their first Champions League trophy, aiming to achieve a very rare feat – winning the prestigious continental tournament twice in a row.

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On the other side – the North London footballers who ended a 22-year wait and won the English Premier League title, seeking to write a new chapter in the club’s history – Arsenal has never been able to call itself the strongest club in Europe.

The Parisians and the “Gunners” took different paths to the final.

PSG, like last year, struggled in the regular season, where they slipped twice, drew twice more, and finished only 11th.

This meant that Luis Enrique’s team had to play an additional knockout stage, but once they got going there, the defending champions from Paris did not stop until the final, defeating former Champions League winners London’s Chelsea, Liverpool, and Munich’s Bayern along the way.

“I came to this club thinking: ‘my goal is to achieve historic results,’ and we have definitely done that. We want to keep making history because we believe we can achieve even more,” said 56-year-old L. Enrique, who is in his third season at PSG, before the final.

The Spaniard, who won his first Champions League title as a coach back in 2015 with Barcelona, arrived in Paris after a not very successful stint with the Spanish national team and surrounded by doubts: can this specialist’s football philosophy still be victorious?

The first attempt was a failure when the Parisians, who tested the goalposts dozens of times, lost to Borussia Dortmund in the 2024 Champions League semifinal, and last year PSG barely scraped into the tournament knockout stages.

However, in those stages PSG became an unstoppable force that ultimately achieved a historic result in the final – a 5:0 thrashing of Milan’s Inter and the biggest victory in a final in the history of the prestigious European tournament.

If they triumph again in Budapest tonight, the Parisians will join a very rare company.

Since the strongest continental tournament became the UEFA Champions League in 1992, only Madrid’s Real has managed to win it at least twice in a row (the “kings” did it three times – 2016, 2017, and 2018).

Since 1955, when the then European Cup (the predecessor of the Champions League) was established, seven other clubs have managed to repeat a final triumph, but all of them – more than 36 years ago: Lisbon’s Benfica (1961 and 1962), Inter (1964 and 1965), Amsterdam’s Ajax (1971, 1972, and 1973), Bayern (1974, 1975, and 1976), Liverpool (1977 and 1978), Nottingham Forest (1979 and 1980), and AC Milan (1989 and 1990).

“I would say I felt more pressure last year because everyone said: ‘that’s it – this time we definitely cannot lose!'” said L. Enrique. “This time we feel pressure because we deserve to win this title.”

The specialist from Gijón can also enter history himself. Throughout the tournament’s history, only four coaches have so far managed to win the European Cup or Champions League at least three times: Carlo Ancelotti did it five times, Bob Paisley, Pep Guardiola, and Zinedine Zidane – three times each. L. Enrique could become the fifth such specialist.

And this might not be the end yet.

To Budapest, the Spaniard brought a squad with an average player age of less than 24 years.

The team captain Marquinhos, who is 32, stands out for his maturity in a very young group of players: Warren Zaire-Emery and Desire Doue are only 20, Joao Neves is 21, Nuno Mendes and Bradley Barcola are 23, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is 25, Vitinha is 26.

Meanwhile, Arsenal breezed through the regular Champions League stage without losing a single point – Mikel Arteta’s team became the first in this format to collect all possible 24 points.

But in the knockouts, the London team, which missed the first stage, had a harder time than the French – three stages were overcome with a total goal difference of 4.

Arsenal had to juggle two very important fronts all season long.

While PSG could afford to rest players in the French championship, where the team’s brightest star Ousmane Dembele played only 11 matches in the starting lineup all season, the London team defended with all their might against Manchester City’s attacks in the Premier League.

Although with five rounds to go it seemed that the “Gunners” might let go of a trophy that seemed already in their hands, in the final stretch Arteta’s team was unbreakable – finishing the season with five wins and winning their first English championship title since 2004.

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Perhaps due to this additional physical and emotional burden, the “Gunners” struggled more to break through barriers in the Champions League knockouts, where, it must be admitted, they faced easier opponents than the Parisians.

Still, Arsenal managed to take another step forward: if in 2024 they were eliminated in the quarterfinals, last year they reached the semifinals, and this year they have already reached the final.

And it does not matter how they did it – Arteta’s team has often been criticized in recent years for a pragmatic playing style, strict structure, and a large number of goals scored from free kicks and corners.

“We will have to overcome emotions and do what we have done all season – win the football match. If we win one more game, we will be European champions,” said 44-year-old Spaniard M. Arteta, who is in his seventh season at Arsenal, before the final. “The Premier League title was already a great achievement for us for the path we took step by step, but now we want even more.”

Arsenal has a chance to become the 25th king of European club football and the seventh from England (after Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Nottingham Forest, and Aston Villa).

For many players of the London team, this is a chance to reach the top for the first time – from the current Arsenal squad, only Kai Havertz and Kepa Arrizabalaga have won the Champions League, when they did so five years ago with Chelsea.

Led by key players Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Viktor Gyokeres, William Saliba, Gabriel, and others, the team could become only the third English team this century to achieve a double in the same season – that is, to win both the Premier League and the Champions League. So far, this has been achieved by Man Utd (2007-2008) and Man City (2022-2023).

The French and English champions will fight for the title at the Budapest stadium named after the legendary Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás.

In this place and country, the Champions winner will be decided for the first time. Opened in 2019 and with a capacity of 67,000 spectators, the Puskás Arena will become the 34th stadium to host a final, Budapest will be the 28th different city, and Hungary the 18th country to host a final.

Interestingly, the final will take place at an unusual time. It is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Lithuanian time.

This is three hours earlier than recent finals, which started at 10 p.m. According to the official announcement, the final was moved earlier for a better experience for fans coming to Budapest.

Interestingly, the last time a final did not start at 9:45 or 10 p.m. was back when the current Champions League was just being created – in 1992.

The season’s climax will also feature show elements. Before the final starts, the famous American rock band The Killers will perform at the Budapest stadium; they filmed a clip with English football icon David Beckham to promote their show.

The UEFA Champions League anthem before the final will be performed by internationally known Hungarian pianist Adam Gyorgy, who also performed before the decisive 2023 Champions League match in Istanbul between Manchester City and Inter.

The tournament winners will receive the 73.5 cm tall and 7.5 kg heavy Champions League trophy, which was created over 340 hours by Swiss jeweler Jürg Stadelmann.

But more important than the trophy for PSG and Arsenal players will be the record that it was they, and no one else, who became the kings of European football in the 2025-2026 season.

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