PSG vs Inter: Tales of Redemption and Revival
Saturday's Champions League final is an intriguing proposition.
This is a guest article by Chirag Sharatkumar. Subscribe to Sideline Stories.
Well, here we are. A whirlwind European campaign, the first of a new, if only slightly complicated format, is nearing its end. Over the past eight months, 188 UEFA Champions League matches have been played, beginning with the very first matchday of the league phase back in September.
Now, 256 days later, Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan will meet in Munich to contest the final. Think back to September, to the start of the season, and neither of these two teams were outright favourites to progress deep into the tournament, let alone make the final. But football is a funny thing. The expected heavyweights fell away, some early on, some in catastrophic fashion, and some with just a whimper.
Manchester City had a season to forget, walking away in the play-off round. AC Milan and Juventus, too, left the party early. Liverpool saw great promise fizzle out in the matchup of the season against PSG, while Bayer Leverkusen had an unwelcome return to Europe’s top floor. Real Madrid scraped their way through and then imploded catastrophically against Arsenal, while Bayern Munich fought hard but fumbled against Inter. Aston Villa, to their credit, teased a historic run but eventually fell away in quarter-finals, as did Borussia Dortmund.
Barcelona and Arsenal, having shown so much promise throughout the season and among the top three at the end of the league phase, treated us to two semi-final matchups for the ages. Barca went toe-to-toe with Inter across a 7-6 aggregate tie only to crash out in the very final minutes to Davide Fratessi’s 99th-minute winner. Arsenal fell victim to their own suppositions and failed to truly trouble PSG, the 3-1 aggregate scoreline an indication of just how far Luis Enrique’s side have come.
And that ultimately sets the stage for Saturday’s final. PSG take on Inter in a clash of titans that promises to be as eventful as it does entertaining.
For PSG, relative to where they were six months ago, reaching the final itself is a massive accomplishment. In a post-Kylian-Mbappe Parisian wasteland, nobody knew what was expected. In Luis Enrique, they had a capable, likeable, brave manager with an idea to implement and a point to prove. But most clubs would assume, and rightly so, that losing your best player, a generational talent who is sure to score heaps of goals and make it all look very easy, would mean a very serious and likely long rebuild. PSG, however, are not most clubs.
As it turns out, losing Mbappe, a player they so desperately yearned to hold hostage, might just have been the best possible thing for PSG. For Lucho too, he now has a team that does not gawk in reverence of one player’s shadow but chooses instead to stand together and share the spotlight as a team.
Relative to where they are today, though, anything less than winning the trophy would be a massive disappointment for PSG. This is the trophy they have craved from the very beginning, their white while, the one that they have longed for and lost at nearly every turn. Indeed, PSG have been here in the not-so-distant past, but they fell away in the 2020 final to a powerhouse Bayern side in a game where even Neymar’s individual brilliance couldn’t quite save them.
This is not the same PSG, though. Where it was once Neymar, Mbappe and the rest, it is now an ensemble cast. Five years on, and only Marquinhos remains. Ousmane Dembele has 33 goals this season, Bradley Barcola has 21, and everyone else from Desire Doue to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has chipped in equally. The stunning, fluid attack has been ably supported by a workhorse midfield of Fabian Ruiz, Vitinha and Joao Neves. Add to that the flair of marauding fullbacks in Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes, along with the firm wall that is Gianluigi Donnarumma and PSG have, after many years, finally become more than just a handful of stars. They are now a cohesive, confident unit – one that may just bring Paris the glory it has so openly longed for.
Inter, perhaps similarly, might not have been most people’s idea of a Champions League finalist, but they are set impressively for their second final in three years. Simone Inzaghi’s side will be quick to remember what happened in Istanbul in 2023, though, where the mechanical juggernaut that was Pep Guardiola’s treble-winning Manchester City squeaked past them by the barest of margins.
But they are here now, ready for their second bite at the cherry. Their first go at it since that historic 2010 treble under Jose Mourinho saw them come so close but falter at the final stretch, a sign of enduring resilience but not any real dominance. Their route to the final this time around may have had more twists and turns, particularly across both legs of their semi-final against Barcelona, but it has been marked more than anything else by a simple efficiency that will hold them in good stead against the wild unpredictability that PSG offer.
Inzaghi has, from the moment he arrived at San Siro, built on the work done before him by Antonio Conte to create a ruthless defensive structure that laid the foundation for a clinical attack. Barcelona exposed the holes in that system, proving it fallible, but they also brought out an attacking spark that perhaps lay dormant in Inter until now.
Marcus Thuram and Lautaro Martinez have been one of Europe’s best strike partnerships this season with 40 goals and 16 assists between them. Federico Dimarco and Denzel Dumfries are proving just how valuable the modern wingback can be with their versatility and dynamism. And in Yann Sommer, Inter have found perhaps their ideal goalkeeper, a genuine shot-stopper who complements their deep defence perfectly.
A season that started out so brightly for the Nerazzurri and up until very recently, carried with it so much potential, has also now fizzled. Inter could not keep pace on all three fronts, sacrificing the league to Napoli and crashing out of the Coppa Italia at the hands of eternal rivals AC Milan. The Champions League remains their only hope now, and there’s every reason to believe that what didn’t happen in Istanbul two years ago could well happen in Munich this weekend.
In the end, this might not have been the final people were expecting at the start of the season, but it could quite likely be one of the most entertaining matches of football we get to see this season. It is not a battle of juggernauts, with Real Madrid, Manchester City and Liverpool all out of the question. It proposes the tantalising idea of a new champion, or an exiled one. PSG, seeking redemption after years of near-misses, will take on Inter, who are hoping to announce Italy’s return to the pinnacle of European football.
Whether this final sees PSG finally fulfill their 15-year quest for European glory, or if it ends in a victory for Italian football and a statement of Inter’s resurgence, one thing’s for sure: it’s certainly going to be one to remember.