Why PSG winning the Champions League final against Arsenal is good for football?

PSG become only the second team to retain the Champions League in its modern form, completing a historic back to back and beating Arsenal on penalties in what was a tense final.

It wasn’t necessarily a showpiece of attacking football in the same way as PSG’s dismantling of Inter in last season’s Champions League final, but yesterday’s win was actually arguably even more impressive, coming up against a defensive and resolute Arsenal team who had little interest in going forwards after their early goal and instead stayed parked in front of their own goal with eleven men behind the ball, freely allowing PSG to have possession.

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And while Arsenal’s defence was firm, as it has been all season, it wasn’t perfect enough, as Cristhian Mosquera fouled Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from behind, leading to a penalty that was duly converted by Ousmane Dembélé, who sent David Raya diving the wrong way and coolly slotted into the bottom corner.

It was PSG who tried then to find a winner, with Vitinha, Kvaratskhelia and Barcola all coming close to breaking through, but in the end the game crept into extra time. At the other end of the pitch, Matvei Safonov was left largely untroubled, as Arsenal never really managed to mount any particularly dangerous attacks, and seemed quite content to hold on for the penalty shoot-out.

PSG, though, were not to be broken, and despite ending extra time with an unexpected group of players including Gonçalo Ramos, Lucas Beraldo and Illya Zabarnyi, they still managed to win the shoot-out, with misses from Arsenal’s Eberichi Eze and Gabriel meaning that PSG supporters will be able to celebrate another historic triumph.

It truly is an extraordinary turn around for the club who for so long had carried the curse of being poor in Europe, regarded as perennial bottlers: ridiculed for a succession of comical exits from Europe, each of which seemed somehow more contrived, more absurd, than the last. But that is long gone now. Luis Enrique’s arrival has done more than breathe new life into this PSG side, this is now a whole new project in which the stars of yesteryear have been replaced by a focus on the collective, on creating a technically balanced team.

It is good for football, ultimately, if PSG won yesterday against Arsenal. Enrique’s Parisians were the only one of the sides who set out to win the final from the start, while Arteta’s Gunners, even when the game was level, seemed determined to continue their model of conservative, set piece oriented football, which has spread far and wide across the English game this season.

We can only hope that more clubs around Europe attempt to follow the PSG model and look to play the best football possible, focusing on technical, counterpressing and attacking football. At times, Enrique’s style is almost like an amalgam of Pep Guardiola’s ‘Juego de posición’ and Jurgen Klopp’s heavy metal ‘gegenpress’: it’s no coincidence then, that his side have been so dominant in Europe over the last couple of seasons. And in fairness, that doesn’t look likely to change any time soon.

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