Category: Football (Soccer)

The origin of PSG’s largesse and the effect it’s had on their domestic game can’t be ignored, even as we appreciate the team’s stunning quality

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Since 1990, only one side had ever successfully defended the Champions League – Real Madrid, who won three in a row between 2016 and 2018. Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in the final on Saturday elevates them to a new tier of the pantheon. No bad side has ever won the European Cup or Champions League, but only great sides have ever retained it.

Arsenal pushed them much closer than Inter had in losing in the final the previous year, and there is always something slightly unsatisfying about a victory on penalties, but the quality of this PSG cannot be denied. They put six past Bayern in the semi-final – their superiority far greater than the one-goal aggregate margin would suggest. It was a similar story in the quarter-final, in which a 4-0 aggregate victory didn’t really reflect how much better they were than Liverpool. And while Chelsea may think they were slightly unlucky to lose the first leg of their last-16 tie away to PSG 5-2, the 3-0 result in the second leg was a devastating assertion of authority: three goals scored by an almost bored opponent apparently just as they felt like it.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

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In recent weeks, there has been endless discourse on why so many people hate Arsenal. Yet, yesterday’s parade in the cultural melting pot of north London proved that plenty of people out there really, really, really love them. Due in no small part to the fact that he couldn’t head his penalty and none of his teammates were blocking the PSG goalkeeper, Gabriel Magalhães’ miss from the spot meant the Gunners came up agonisingly short in their latest bid to win Bigger Cup. That didn’t stop the thick end of a million Arsenal fans of every age, stripe and shade from making the pilgrimage to Islington to worship their vanquished heroes. With the Premier League trophy already in the bag, the general mood ratio of unbridled joy to crushing disappointment was about 75-25, a statistic many will recognise as being almost identical to the previous evening’s possession stats in the Puskas Arena.

To better highlight the whole field among Europe’s elite, we chose an XI that couldn’t feature more than one player from any one team

This year we are picking a team of the season with a difference: I am allowed only one player per team. Of course, as finalists Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal have players with claims to all of these positions, so apologies to Willian Pacho and Declan Rice, among others. But what this format does allow for is an overall view of the Champions League season that was.

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Thirst for renewal is strong and new players could help bridge the gap to PSG but there are no guarantees

The greatest lie ever told about penalty shootouts is that they are a lottery. This is a recognisable and trainable footballing skill, a test not just of ball-striking and placement but research, psychology, mettle under pressure. Eberechi Eze puts the ball wide, Gabriel Magalhães sends it in the direction of the Danube: this is failure on the most brutal and unforgiving terms. But it is failure nonetheless.

The second greatest lie ever told about penalties is that fortune plays no part. Any encounter decided by 10 kicks of a football will evidently be at the disproportionate mercy of random factors: the divot, the bad contact, the goalkeeper’s guesswork (and to all the preparation that goes into the process, it remains partly guesswork). That this sport – already a sport of low scores, narrow differentials and infinite variables – chooses to decide its biggest prizes on these smallest of morsels is one of its cruellest traits.

The best images from Budapest and beyond as, after reaching their first Champions League final in 20 years, Arsenal lost out on penalties to the defending champions Paris Saint-Germain