Paris Saint-Germain are the Champions of Europe. Again. In Budapest on Saturday night they beat Arsenal 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw that had everything — an early goal, a penalty controversy, a VAR decision that had Arsenal furious, and finally a penalty shootout that ended with Gabriel Magalhaes firing over the bar and the PSG players going absolutely berserk. Luis Enrique has now won three Champions League titles as a manager. He is in the company of Pep Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane. Only Carlo Ancelotti has won more.
Arsenal were magnificent for large parts of this game. Kai Havertz scored in the sixth minute, driving through the PSG defence and rifling the ball into the roof of the net. It was his second Champions League final goal for a second different club, joining Ronaldo and Mandzukic in that specific piece of trivia. Arsenal then did what Arteta's teams do — they organised, they defended, they made PSG play in front of them. For an hour it looked like it might just be enough. PSG had 72 percent of the ball and were making precisely nothing with it.
Then Kvaratskhelia went down in the box under a challenge from Mosquera and Daniel Siebert pointed to the spot. Dembele, the Ballon d'Or winner, sent Raya the wrong way and the whole game changed in an instant. Arsenal had a penalty shout of their own in extra time, a challenge on Madueke that looked every bit as clear as the one PSG got, and VAR waved it away. Football has a way of making those decisions feel enormous when they go against you.
The shootout was the final cruelty. Eze missed for PSG but Raya saved from Nuno Mendes to keep Arsenal alive. Then Gabriel stepped up needing to score to keep the shootout going and sent the ball into orbit. PSG celebrated. Arsenal sat on the pitch. Arteta has now won the Premier League and reached a Champions League final in the same season. That is a genuinely extraordinary achievement for a manager and a club that were in genuine disarray five years ago. Tonight will hurt but the broader picture is one of a club that has been genuinely transformed.
For PSG this is history. Back to back Champions Leagues for the first time since Real Madrid in 2016 and 2017. A club that spent twenty years spending fortunes on superstars and winning nothing in Europe has now won it twice in a row with a team built on collective pressing, youth and a manager who genuinely seems to have figured something out. The World Cup starts in twelve days. Several of these players will be going. The football world does not stop.
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