PSG’s Champions League win was thrilling. It was still sportswashing | Jonathan Wilson

After years as a directionless collection of celebrity footballers, PSG are a true team now. But they still represent one of the sport’s darkest trends

Paris Saint-Germain’s success in the Champions League final on Saturday was a victory for youth and adventure. It was a victory for a team built with a coherent vision, and a rebuke to those who believe the game is just about collecting the biggest names. It was a victory for Luis Enrique, a very fine coach who has suffered dreadful personal tragedy. It was a victory for forward-thinking, progressive, fluent football.

But it was also a victory for sportswashing.

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‘La débâcle’: Italian press turn on Inzaghi after Inter’s night of misery | Nicky Bandini

Writers bemoaned Inter’s ‘climax of suffering’ in Munich but saved their harshest words for Simone Inzaghi

On the front pages of Italy’s newspapers, the Champions League final was told as a “nightmare”, a “humiliation”, and a “rout”. Tuttosport at least found room for humour with a “DisIntergrated” pun. La Stampa, in deference to the victors Paris Saint-Germain, went instead with a French phrase: “La débâcle”.

Any team can lose a Champions League final but Internazionale were the first to do so by a five-goal margin. The final indignity of a season in which they aspired to repeat the treble they won under José Mourinho, only to come unstuck at the last: losing the Coppa Italia semi-final to neighbours Milan and then missing out on the Serie A title by one point.

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Paris Saint-Germain 5-0 Internazionale: Champions League final – as it happened

PSG finally became champions of Europe after routing Inter as they recorded the biggest margin of victory in any European Cup or Champions League final

Pennant watch. Here’s what PSG captain Marquinhos will be handing over during the pre-match niceties. A typically classy piece in the retro-poster style, here it’s the centrepiece of an enigmatic pop-art collage also featuring a fruit platter, several hundred toothpicks, some power bars, three toilet rolls, a carry case of assorted hardware, and what may or may not be a box of Terry’s Chocolate Orange in the top-right corner. If this was an LP cover you’d stay up half the night trying to decode it.

Inter are playing in their third-choice yellow strip this evening. So that means their pennant will clash with captain Lautaro Martínez’s shirt, but what a gorgeous thing it is anyway (the current Volkswagen-adjacent monstrosity of a crest, not half as good as the old interlapping FCIM logo, notwithstanding).

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Football matchday live: PSG v Inter Champions League final buildup

Comment: “The Champions League final is a jarring and stirring clash of styles in so many ways,” writes Jonathan Liew. “The relentless attack of Paris Saint-Germain and the relentless defence of Inter. One team built on the freehand wizardry of youth and one built on the weathered edifice of experience. Flying wingers against flying wing-backs, two strikers against none. But perhaps the biggest philosophical difference is between two radically different models of a football club itself: who it serves, what it can be, what constitutes success, and how to get there.”

Guardian Football Weekly podcast: Max Rushden was in the chair as the Football Weekly panel previewed tonight’s Champions League final. You can listen to our discussion here and if you’re not already a regular listener, what have you been doing for the past 19 years!?!? You can sign up for Football Weekly on all the usual podcast platforms.

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Capitalism v despotism: Inter v PSG is clash of styles on and off pitch | Jonathan Liew

Champions League final features opposing tactical approaches and two radically different ownership models

In 2021, Oaktree Capital quietly rebranded its “Distressed Debt” division as the “Opportunistic Credit” platform. For decades the LA-based investment fund had specialised in picking up what is known in the trade as distressed assets, a strategy it described as looking for “good companies with bad balance sheets”.

So let’s say your company is screwed. You’re deep in debt, severely short of cash, perhaps even at risk of bankruptcy or default. In sweep Oaktree. They have a mosey around, shake down some creditors, restructure your cost base, perhaps offer you a high‑interest loan to stop the bleeding. Once they’ve got you battle-lean they find you a buyer, you sell up, and they take a fat cut. Four years ago, as they cast an eye over the Covid-emaciated carcass of Inter, this was exactly the strategy they had in mind.

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Football Daily | PSG and Inter to serve up continental treat in Champions League final

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With the 2024-25 season in Uefa-land drawing to its glamorous close, is there a better time to assess how the whole thing went down with everything considered in the round? Yes! But Football Daily doesn’t publish on Sunday morning, so let’s make the best of a bad lot. And it’s been a good year for English football all right. Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United went to the artistic and creative mecca of Bilbao and staged what can only be described as a dirty protest, a Chelsea squad worth £1,400,000,000 struggled against (though eventually steamrollered) a team collectively priced at 0.96% of a Mykhailo Mudryk, and it’s fair to say the rest of the continent will be extremely glad to see the back of us.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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Qatar bid to complete football with PSG project’s crowd-pleasing third act | Barney Ronay

Whatever the result of Champions League final, PSG’s owners have positioned club as game’s next superpower

Put a bisht on it. That’s a wrap. At first glance it might be tempting to see the 2025 Champions League final as one of the more obviously high-European occasions in recent football history.

Twenty thousand Parisians and Milanese will trace out a thousand mile right-angle this weekend, north from Lombardy, east across Alsace and the Rhineland, there to spend a long weekend wandering the white stone streets of Munich, with its reassuringly terrifying gothic cathedral, its pounded-meat cuisine de terroir, its altstadt boutiques selling wristwatches priced at roughly the same the cost as the average human arm, and finally on to the lighted dome of the Allianz Arena, dumped down in the green fringes to the north like a giant alien doughnut.

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Now or never? Inter ready to seize moment in Champions League final | Nicky Bandini

Simone Inzaghi’s talent-packed team will be underdogs against PSG but believe they have learned from 2023 agony

Taking part in a Champions League final is not a thing anyone should take for granted, but some players more than others at the Allianz Stadium on Saturday will recognise that this might be their last chance. Francesco Acerbi, at 37 years and 110 days, would become the third-oldest man to play in and win the competition’s showpiece if he can help Inter beat Paris St-Germain.

“I’m calm, but also agitated,” said the centre-back during the Italian club’s media open day at the start of this week. “The closer it gets the more tense I feel. We hope it will be a beautiful final but in the end the important thing is lifting the cup … It’s a thing that drives you out of your mind, gives you goosebumps. I would do anything to lift it.”

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Jerzy Dudek: ‘Carra said to do the spaghetti legs like Grobbelaar but I needed to study my book’

Liverpool’s penalty shootout hero in the 2005 Champions League final against Milan reflects on the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’ and how it changed his life

Twenty years on from that double save, those spaghetti legs and the miracle of Liverpool’s fifth European Cup triumph and Turkey has not lost the capacity to make a champion out of Jerzy Dudek. “I won the Turkish Open golf last week and it reminded me a bit of Istanbul,” the former Liverpool goalkeeper says. “It is my favourite place, my lucky place, and it stays with me all the time. If I go on holiday to Turkey I always go with a big smile.”

Sunday promises to have the same effect on everyone associated with Liverpool. The presentation of the Premier League trophy to Arne Slot’s champions at Anfield coincides with the 20th anniversary of the “Miracle of Istanbul”, when Liverpool overcame a 3-0 half-time deficit to defeat Milan on penalties in the Champions League final. Not that any Liverpool fan needs reminding of the details. The sights and sounds of Ataturk Stadium remain as vivid to Dudek now as they were on 25 May, 2005.

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Manchester United face urgent dilemma: ditch Amorim or revamp the squad | Jonathan Wilson

Not many at Old Trafford are suited to the manager’s trusty 3-4-2-1 but replacing them will cost hundreds of millions

Everything always seems clearer in the morning, and in the cold grey light of Thursday, the prognosis for Manchester United is bleak. While Tottenham face an awkward calculation – weighing up whether the delirium of a first European trophy in 41 years offsets their worst league season in terms of proportion of games lost – for Manchester United the equation is far starker.

Ruben Amorim will only play in one way. He is committed absolutely, uncompromisingly, irrevocably to the 3-4-2-1. Liverpool considered him, looked at their squad, realised the two things did not go together, appointed Arne Slot and won the league. Manchester United looked at their squad, flinched at the horror, and seem to have reasoned it was such a mess that it was impossible to find a manager whose philosophy would fit. There was a dissenting voice, Dan Ashworth, but at the court of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, reasoned doubts are as unwelcome as a free lunch.

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‘He’s the right man’: Fernandes backs Amorim to stay at Manchester United

  • Head coach ready to leave ‘next day’ if he loses trust
  • Midfielder says Amorim ‘has done a lot of good things’

Bruno Fernandes has insisted Ruben Amorim should remain as Manchester United head coach despite Wednesday’s Europa League final defeat to Tottenham, while the captain admitted he would leave if the club wants to “cash in” on him.

United lost the final at San Mamés Stadium to Brennan Johnson’s 42nd-minute winner. Amorim stated afterwards he would leave the “next day” if the board and fans lose faith in him.

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Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Manchester United: Spurs win Europa League final – as it happened

Brennan Johnson, Micky van de Ven and Guglielmo Vicario were the heroes as Tottenham won their first European trophy in 41 years with a dogged display in Bilbao

Our man David Hytner is watching all of the red-carpet arrivals in Cannes San Mamés. “Just got to the ground to see Ian Wright being serenaded on his way into the VIP entrance by a large group of Spurs fans. Which certainly made him smile. David Dein, too, who was with him, along with Theo Paphitis. Bumped into Thomas Tuchel moments before and it really is one of those occasions when the stars are out. The anticipation is building!”

Ruben Amorim talks to TNT. “I am relaxed now … I did my job … now it’s with my players and I am really confident … I really enjoyed the last two trainings … when you have these kind of trainings you feel relaxed, so I trust in the guys … so I have that feeling and I’m really confident … Mason Mount in this moment gives us a balance … really good attacking but one extra midfielder … also to have speed on the bench … legs to change the game … in the beginning it is really important to feel the game and we are getting better at that … the result is not going to change so much [regarding transfers] … it can help to add one more if we need … the most important thing is the feeling of winning … we need to deliver that feeling … I am not thinking about the money … we will arrange money because we are a big brand … we are a club that needs that feeling … without trophies it’s really hard to get a connection … we are getting better … this team can step up … I truly believe my players are going to do it.”

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