HEAD-TO-HEAD
Paris SG and Arsenal will be facing each other for the eighth time in all competitions, with their head-to-head record perfectly balanced at two wins each and three draws. However, Paris SG won their last two meetings against Arsenal, beating them home and away in the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League semifinal.
This is the fourth UCL meeting between Paris SG and Arsenal since the start of last season, after a league phase home victory for Arsenal in October 2024 and Paris SG’s two wins in the semifinals later that season. Only Manchester City and Real Madrid have faced each other more often in the same span (5).
This will be the first ever major European final between clubs from France and England. It will also be the fourth European Cup/UEFA Champions League final between clubs from two different capital cities, after Benfica v Real Madrid (1962), Real Madrid v Partizan Belgrade (1966) and Ajax v Panathinaikos (1971).
Paris SG have prevailed in each of their last five UEFA Champions League knockout ties against English clubs. Manchester City were the last English side to eliminate the Parisians, in the semifinals of the 2020/21 tournament.
Since the round of 16 last season, 54 per cent of Paris SG’s UEFA Champions League matches have been against English clubs (13 out of 24, including the upcoming final). This includes six of the nine knockout ties over the same period (vs Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal last season; v Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal this season).
Arsenal have been eliminated in their two UCL knockout ties against French sides: v Monaco in the 2014/15 round of 16 (3-3 agg., away goals rule) and Paris SG in last season’s semifinals (1-3 agg.).
FORM & TRENDS
Paris SG are unbeaten in their last 11 UCL knockout matches, winning nine and drawing two. Aston Villa were the last team to beat PSG in the k/o phase of the competition, 3-2 at Villa Park in the 2024/25 quarterfinals.
Paris SG’s 44 goals in 2025/26 is the outright second most scored by a team in a single edition of the UEFA Champions League, behind Barcelona’s 45 in 1999/00.
Arsenal are the only team unbeaten in this season’s UEFA Champions League, with 11 wins and three draws. Their only period trailing in a match in the competition this season occurred during the round of 16 first leg away to Bayer Leverkusen, where they were behind for 43 minutes (1-1 final score).
Arsenal hold the best defensive record in this season’s UEFA Champions League, conceding six goals in 14 matches (0.43 per game). The record for teams with 13+ matches in a single campaign remains 0.31 per game, held by Arsenal (2005/06) and Chelsea (2020/21). Additionally, Arsenal are the only side yet to concede a goal from open play in this season’s knockout stages (6 matches).
This will be Arsenal’s 63rd and final game of 2025/26, more than any team from the big-five European leagues this season. It’s also Arsenal’s most for 46 years, when they played a club-record 70 matches in the 1979/80 campaign.
Over the last two seasons, Paris SG and Arsenal will have both played the same number of matches in all competitions: 121 each, including the upcoming final. Only Real Madrid and Chelsea have played more in that span across clubs from the big-five European leagues.
SHOWPIECE & VENUE CONTEXT
The Premier League will have at least one representative in the UEFA Champions League final for the sixth time in the last nine seasons. Over the same period, LaLiga and Ligue 1 are the next most frequent participants, with at least one club appearing in three separate finals (incl. 2026).
The team that opens the scoring has won each of the last 11 UEFA Champions League finals. Real Madrid were the last side to overcome a deficit to win the trophy, defeating Atlético Madrid 4-1 after extra time in 2014.
Since the inception of the UEFA Champions League in 1992/93, only one of the 33 finals has ended goalless: AC Milan’s victory over Juventus in 2003 (0-0 a.e.t., 3-2 pens). Meanwhile, the last final to be decided by a penalty shootout was in 2016, when Real Madrid defeated Atlético Madrid (1-1 a.e.t., 5-3 pens).
This will be the first ever UEFA Champions League/European Cup final held in Hungary. The Puskás Aréna previously hosted two showpiece UEFA club matches: the UEFA Super Cup between Bayern Munich and Sevilla in 2020 (2-1 a.e.t.) and the UEFA Europa League final between Sevilla and Roma in 2023 (1-1 a.e.t., 4-1 pens).
HISTORICAL MILESTONES & RECORDS
Paris SG are the first team to reach consecutive UEFA Champions League finals since Liverpool in 2018 and 2019. They are now aiming to become only the second club in the Champions League era (since 1992/93) to successfully defend their title, a feat only previously achieved by Real Madrid when they won three in a row between 2016 and 2018.
Since 2020, Paris Saint-Germain have reached the UEFA Champions League final more times than any other club, appearing in three editions: 2020 (0-1 v Bayern Munich), 2025 (5-0 v Inter Milan), and the upcoming 2026 final against Arsenal.
This will be Arsenal’s second European Cup/Champions League final, 20 years after their first appearance in 2006 (a 1-2 loss to Barcelona). If they win, they will become the second London club to lift the trophy after Chelsea; this would make London the first capital city to boast multiple winners of the competition, and only the third city overall with two title holders after Milan and Manchester.
Arsenal could become the 25th team to win the UEFA Champions League/European Cup, and the third first-time winner of the competition over the last four editions, after Manchester City in 2023 and Paris SG in 2025. The Gunners could also become the seventh English club to lift the trophy – no other country has had more than three different winners.
Arsenal’s two European trophies are the 1970 Fairs Cup and the 1994 Cup Winners Cup. Since then, they have lost their last four major European finals: the 1995 Cup Winners’ Cup (1-2 a.e.t. v Real Zaragoza), the 2000 UEFA Cup (0-0 a.e.t., 1-4 pens v Galatasaray), the 2006 Champions League (1-2 v Barcelona), and the 2019 Europa League (1-4 v Chelsea).
Arsenal have played more matches in UEFA Champions League/European Cup history than any other club without winning the trophy: 225 games, 0 titles.
Arsenal are looking to become the fourth English club to win the top-flight and European Cup/UEFA Champions League in the same season, along with Liverpool (1976-77, 1983-84), Man Utd (1998-99, 2007-08) and Man City (2022-23).
PLAYERS & MANAGERS
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has been involved in more goals than any other player in the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League knockout phase (10), scoring seven times and delivering three assists. The Paris SG forward is the first player to score or assist in seven consecutive knockout stage appearances in the same UCL campaign.
Paris SG’s Vitinha has made 227 line-breaking passes in the UEFA Champions League this season – 44 more than any other player. No Arsenal players have made 100+ line-breaking passes this season (Declan Rice with the most, 96).
Marquinhos will be making his 122nd UEFA Champions League appearance – that’s more than any other Brazilian player in the history of the competition (Roberto Carlos, 120). The Paris captain is the only player to have featured in both of PSG’s two previous UCL finals, against Bayern in 2020 and Inter Milan in 2025.
Bukayo Saka has recorded more goal involvements against Ligue 1 opposition than any other country’s opponents in the UEFA Champions League, scoring five goals and delivering three assists in just six matches. This tally includes two goals scored in his three appearances against Paris SG.
Kai Havertz is the only Arsenal player to record multiple goal contributions (goals + assists) in the knockout phase of this season’s UEFA Champions League: a penalty against Bayer Leverkusen and the only goal of the tie against Sporting CP.
Arsenal pair Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus both played in the 2021 UEFA Champions League final for Chelsea and Manchester City respectively. The only players to play for two different English clubs in a European Cup/Champions League final are Frank Gray (Nottingham Forest & Leeds United) and Ashley Cole (Arsenal & Chelsea).
Arsenal’s David Raya has kept nine clean sheets in the UEFA Champions League this season – no goalkeeper has ever recorded 10 shutouts in a single campaign in the competition.
Only three players have made more off-ball runs in behind the opposition’s defensive line in the UEFA Champions League this season than Arsenal’s Viktor Gyökeres (113). Of players to make 200+ off-ball runs in 2025-26, Gyökeres has made the highest per centage of those in behind (56.5 per cent).
This will be Luis Enrique’s third UEFA Champions League final as manager, having previously led both Barcelona and Paris to the title in 2015 and 2025 respectively. His win rate (64 per cent) is the best of any manager with 50+ matches in UCL history.
This will be the fourth European Cup/Champions League final to feature two managers from the same country, and the first since Hansi Flick and Thomas Tuchel met in 2020. This also marks the first time in the competition's history that two Spanish managers will face each other in the final, with Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta experiencing his first major European final, both as player and manager.
Luis Enrique’s Paris SG on verge of becoming an era-defining team
Winning a European Cup is an historic event for any team; winning two in a row takes you into the dynastic realm. That is where Luis Enrique’s Paris SG stand ahead of their final date with Arsenal in Budapest.
Should the French side lift the trophy again, it will mark just the 10th time in European Cup history that a team have won it two (or more) consecutive editions.
The distinction to make is that eight of those instances came within the first 35 editions, between 1995-56 and 1989-90. Across the most recent 35 completed editions, between 1990-91 and 2024-25, only two teams have managed the feat.
As history tells us, going back-to-back has become more and more difficult with the modernisation of the game.
Of course, to talk only of what Paris SG continue to do, without mentioning the how, would also sell them short. Since the break-up of the Mbappé-Messi-Neymar triumvirate – closed by what was the painful departure of Mbappé to Real Madrid in 2024 – Luis Enrique has built a team which dazzles through high tempo and associative attacking football, which is backed up by a collective relentlessness without the ball.
The Parisians have averaged 2.75 goals per game in the Champions League this season, which, as it stands, would be the second-highest tally by a team to defend the European Cup in the last 63 years, only marginally behind Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid from 2016-17 (2.77).
If they lift the Champions League again this season, Paris SG would not only have the trophies to make them a historic side, but done so with a style to mark an era of football history.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia lights up the 2025-26 edition
It was Ousmane Dembélé who spearheaded Paris SG’s tournament success last season, positioning himself as the eventual Ballon d’Or winner later in the year. This time round, it has been running mate Khvicha Kvaratskhelia who has electrified the Champions League – even when Paris SG’s collective mentality continues to be their signature.
The Georgian’s 16 goal involvements are the most by a Paris SG player in a Champions League campaign, while his 10 goals are a joint-high, along with Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2013/2014.
Most impressive, however, is how Kvaratskhelia has upped the ante in the knockout stages, scoring (7) or assisting (3) in all but one of his eight appearances since the end of the league phase, as well as in the last seven in a row. Indeed, only one player has ever done so in eight in succession…
In this edition, Kvaratskhelia has managed to pair his electric ball-carrying ability with deadly production when it comes to the final shot or pass. Exactly half of his 16 goal involvements in the Champions League this season have come following carries, which are defined as when a player travels at least five metres in possession of the ball.
Those eight combined goals and assists following a carry are a joint-high, level with Michael Olise, while his five goal-ending carries are the outright most of any player in the competition in 2025-26.
Can Arsenal and David Raya put the brakes on the defending champions?
As they prepare to go in search of an historic league and European double, we ought to have a pretty good idea by now of how Arsenal will go about achieving it – especially against a Paris SG team renowned for their attacking firepower.
Mikel Arteta’s side have been the elite defensive team of this season’s UEFA Champions League. They haven’t been beaten in any of their 14 games, and they have only trailed on the scoreboard for a total of 42 minutes and 48 seconds – or just three per cent of their total match time.
The Gunners are tremendously well organised, equipped with physicality and robust individual defenders and, crucially, possess a difference maker in between the sticks in David Raya.
Should Arsenal get over the line in Budapest, it would be no surprise to see a Raya clean sheet come as a crucial element. With nine to his name currently, the Spaniard could become the first goalkeeper to keep 10 shutouts in a single UEFA Champions League campaign.
Meanwhile, his average of 0.31 goals conceded per game currently stands as the fourth-best by a goalkeeper with 10+ appearances in a Champions League campaign, only behind Édouard Mendy in 2020-21 (0.25), Keylor Navas in 2015-16 (0.27) and Edwin van der Sar in 1995-96 (0.27).