BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – MAY 29: Mikel Arteta the Arsenal Manager of Arsenal during the training session/press conference one day ahead of the UEFA Champions League 2026 Final at Puskas Arena on May 29, 2026 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
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It’s been 20 years since Arsenal last appeared in a Champions League final. For Paris Saint-Germain, the experience is a familiar one having beaten Inter Milan in last year’s final to become European champions for the first time, but Mikel Arteta and his players are new to this sort of thing.
This isn’t to say the newly crowned Premier League champions can’t get the better of the defending European champions in Budapest. Arsenal has proven itself at the top of the European game by making it this far and could be set up to frustrate and ultimately overcome PSG.
Arsenal goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga (left), William Saliba (centre) and Gabriel celebrate with their winners medals after the Premier League match at Selhurst Park, London. Picture date: Sunday May 24, 2026. (Photo by John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)
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Arsenal boasts the best defensive record in this season’s Champions League. It has kept nine clean sheets in the competition, more than any other team. In Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba, the Gunners possess the strongest centre-back pairing in the Premier League, and possibly in all of European soccer.
PSG is an attacking force. Its frontline is fearsome, as Bayern Munich discovered to its cost in the semi-finals when the French giants scored six times over two legs. Ousmane Dembele will do his best to pull Arsenal’s defence out of position with his movement into deep areas while Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Desire Doue will drive at the Premier League side as dribblers.
Yet Arsenal has become accustomed to these sorts of challenges. It managed to hold off Manchester City in the Premier League title race to become English champions for the first time since the Arsene Wenger era and could stay compact enough, and well-organised enough, to keep PSG at arm’s length.
Mikel Arteta (center), head coach of Arsenal, looks on during training at the Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary, on May 29, 2026, on the eve of the UEFA Champions League 2025-26 Final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain FC and Arsenal FC. (Photo by Domenic Aquilina/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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“The ambition is bigger,” said Arteta ahead of Saturday’s Champions League final, reflecting on what Arsenal has already achieved this season. “We have one. We want another one. That is all we have been talking about. We have to reach bigger destinations. The boys have the level of desire at the maximum. They want more.”
Wenger’s Arsenal never won the Champions League. His team lost to Barcelona in the 2006 Champions League before fading at the top of the European game. Arteta’s side has the opportunity to do something that no Arsenal team has ever done before, but the Gunners must produce arguably their greatest-ever performance to do so.
The way this season has gone, though, that could be on the cards. Arsenal has a relatively clean bill of health in terms of the likes of Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz being fit when they have missed large stretches of the season. This could be the Gunners’ night in Budapest.