PSG eye historic win against Inter Milan in Champions League final

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Inter Milan will lock horns in the Champions League final on Saturday, with the French side hoping to win the European club football’s biggest prize for the first time and the Italians eyeing their fourth title.

The match slated for Bayern Munich’s 75,000-capacity Allianz Arena pits an experienced Inter against a PSG team appearing in their second final since the transformative Qatari takeover of the club in 2011.

Whoever wins will succeed Real Madrid as champions, and excitement is notably at fever pitch back in Paris, where around 40,000 people will watch on giant screens at PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium, and a huge police presence is planned around the city.

The climax to the European season has thrown up a mouthwatering clash of opposing styles and ideas of how to build a team, a contest between one of the continent’s old guard and one of the state-owned modern superclubs.

Despite enormous spending, PSG have never won the Champions League before, coming closest when they got to the final in 2020.

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That was during the pandemic, when they lost to Bayern behind closed doors in Lisbon, despite the presence of Kylian Mbappe and Neymar up front.

The addition of Lionel Messi a year later did not help them in their quest to claim the trophy, and their brilliant run to Munich came in the season after Mbappe followed the South American superstar duo out of the exit door.

“There have been great times, difficult times, but we have a glorious opportunity to do something remarkable and historic for this club,” PSG captain Marquinhos said on Friday.

Victory for PSG would make them just the second French winners of the competition – Marseille’s 1993 triumph also came in Munich, at the old Olympic Stadium, and against Inter’s city rivals, AC Milan.

Inter were the last Italian winners, when Jose Mourinho’s side defeated Bayern in Madrid in 2010. They also won it twice in successive years in the 1960s.

The Star