PSG vs Inter live updates: Champions League final team news, predictions and latest build-up – The New York Times

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Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan meet in the Champions League final in Munich, Germany today.
PSG are attempting to win European club soccer’s greatest prize for the first time, while Inter are looking to secure their fourth title.
Both clubs have endured heartbreak in this tournament in recent years. Inter lost the 2022-23 final to Manchester City while PSG were beaten by Bayern Munich in their only appearance in the final, in 2019-20.
GO FURTHER
The ultimate Champions League final guide – PSG’s pacy pressing vs Inter’s intelligent defensive unit
Benjamin Pavard was Inter’s one doubt coming into this game. The Allianz Arena is like home to him having spent four years at Bayern Munich between 2019 and 2023.
The Frenchman trained yesterday and is expected to start tonight's final.
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Just under two hours until kick-off but there are plenty of fans already in the stadium here — perhaps having heard stories of UEFA’s hosting of finals in recent years.
Undoubtedly the tie of this season's Champions League came in the semi-final between Inter and Barcelona.
The Italians got off to the perfect start in Catalonia with early goals from Marcus Thuram and Denzel Dumfries but Barca were soon on level terms. Dumfries gave Inter the lead again in the second half but, again, they were pegged back very quickly as Raphina's strike from range deflected off Yann Sommer's back and in.
The goalfest continued in the second leg with Lautaro Martinez and Hakan Calhanoglu giving Inter another 2-0 lead that was wiped out by Barcelona through Eric Garcia and Dani Olmo. And the visitors must have thought they had won it when Raphinha scored to make it 6-5 on aggregate in the 87th minute.
But no! The unlikeliest of goalscorers, Francesco Acerbi, popped up with a great finish in the third minute of stoppage time to take the game to extra time.
And Davide Frattesi was the hero in that period as his 99th minute finish turned out to be the goal that sent Inter into a seventh Champions League final.
That comfortable victory over Feyenoord set up the tie of the round in the quarter-finals as Inter faced Bayern Munich for a place in the semis.
The first leg at the Allianz Arena was a classic of the Italian smash-and-grab variety as Inter battened down the hatches and stung the home side with a brilliant Lautaro Martinez strike.
Departing hero Thomas Muller found a late equaliser for Bayern but Inter immediately restored their lead with Davide Frattesi finishing off an 88th-minute counter-attack from close range.
There were four goals in the second leg at San Siro and, helpfully for the home side, the teams scored two of them each. Martinez needed just five minutes to cancel out Harry Kane's opener before Benjamin Pavard added to the Inter advantage.
Eric Dier scored in the 76th minute to make it interesting but, once again, Simone Inzaghi's men trusted their rock-solid defence to see it out.
A strong league-phase campaign presented Inter with a last-16 tie against Feyenoord that could certainly be classified as favourable.
Another victory built on strong defence gave the Italians a commanding first-leg lead as Marcus Thuram and Lautaro Martinez scored in the 2-0 win in Rotterdam.
Piotr Zielinski's missed penalty stopped them from extending that lead but it was one they never looked like relinquishing. Thuram scored again while Hakan Calhanoglu made no mistake from 12 yards either side of Jakub Moder's equaliser.
2-1 on the night in Milan and 4-1 on aggregate.
No real problems for Inter in the league phase as they built a solid campaign on a string of 1-0 victories.
Just one defeat from their eight matches as well as big wins against Crvena zvezda and Monaco with Lautaro Martinez playing a starring role in both. Only Liverpool picked up more points in the league phase than Inter who, like Barcelona and Arsenal. accrued 19 points.
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Munich is very hot today. 27 degrees Celsius (80.6 °F) here at the moment.
I’m always amazed by 9pm kick-offs when you come to continental Europe, it just seems so late. But today it’s very much needed.
It should have dropped to around 21 degrees Celsius (70 °F) by kick-off.
Another Champions League win brought another Premier League opponent for PSG. This time it was Arsenal that they brushed aside.
The only goal of the first leg at the Emirates Stadium came inside four minute when a crisp Ousmane Dembele strike clipped the post on its way past David Raya. There were chances afterwards at both ends but 1-0 was how it finished, giving the French side a big advantage.
And they pressed home that advantage in the second leg. After weathering an early Arsenal storm, Fabian Ruiz made it 2-0 on aggregate before Achraf Hakimi put the tie beyond doubt in the second half.
Bukayo Saka pulled one back for the visitors a few minutes later but missed the chance to put some pressure on PSG by blazing over the crossbar when he had an open goal to aim at.
PSG were drawn against another Premier League side in the quarter-final as Aston Villa travelled to Paris for the first leg of the tie.
And Unai Emery's side took the lead through Youri Tielemans, but it was a not a first-leg lead they could protect. Three superb PSG goals, including a 92nd-minute sucker punch from Nuno Mendes, turned the game around and gave the Parisians a commanding lead to take into the second leg.
It looked like they would use that lead to cruise into the semi-final with Achraf Hakimi and Mendes scoring at Villa Park to give PSG a 5-1 aggregate lead. But Villa fought back well and brought it back to 5-4 but they could not find the equaliser and it was Luis Enrique's men who made it into the final four.
That hammering of Brest in the knockout play-off brought the mouth-watering prospect of a last-16 showdown against Liverpool.
And for much of the first leg, it was one that PSG dominated. But they found goalkeeper Alisson in inspired form and couldn't find a way through the Brazilian's defences before Harvey Elliott scored an 87th-minute winner.
Coming from behind was the challenge for PSG after losing the first leg, and that is exactly what they did.
Ousmane Dembele got the only goal of the second leg, tapping into an empty net after Ibrahima Konate had slid backwards to cut out Bradley Barcola's cross, sending the ball towards his own net, gratefully gobbled up by Dembele.
That sent the tie to extra time and, eventually, penalties, and having seen his opposite man star a week earlier, PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma was the hero.
Despite PSG finishing with three victories in the league phase, they still had to come through a two-legged play-off to make it into the last 16.
Fortunately for them, they were pitted against Ligue 1 peers Brest in that play-off, a team several places below them in the French top-flight table.
It turned very ugly for Brest very quickly. They were beaten 3-0 in the first leg after a Vitinha penalty and a pair of goals for Ousmane Dembele.
The good news for Brest is that they stopped Dembele from scoring in the second leg. The bad news was that they failed to stop seven of his team-mates scoring…
10-0 was the aggregate score over the two legs and PSG cruised into the last 16.
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Paris Saint-Germain are now a genuine contender to win the Champions League but, during the league phase, it wasn't even clear if they would make it into the knockouts.
After a fortuitous, narrow win against Girona, they didn't win any of their next four matches and had to go on a three-game winning streak at the end of their eight initial fixtures to ensure they didn't fall at the first hurdle.
Their 4-2 win against Manchester City in January was impressive, though.
I don't know about anyone else but, for me, this season's Champions League league phase feels a long time ago.
What I do very vividly remember is that PSG really struggled initially before hitting their straps at the right time. Inter, meanwhile, have maintained very high standards throughout.
Over the next hour or so, we'll take a look at how both of the finalists made it this far.
I fear this PSG supporter might be struggling to find a ticket between now and kick-off in a few hours' time.
Unless he has taken a lot of money to Munich with him, of course!
Well, how rare is it that we can say — at this stage of the season — that the two teams competing in a big match are free from any injury worries.
It looked as though Presnel Kimpembe would miss the end of the campaign but he has travelled as part of the PSG squad for today's final. And Simone Inzaghi might have been without Benjamin Pavard and Piotr Zielinski today after their recent injuries but they have both been training and are part of the squad.
So often are the big teams without key players, so it is a real treat that we have a pair of full-strength teams this evening.
There are just six teams with more Champions League (or European Cup) titles than Inter.
The Italian giants already have three and a fourth would see them move into joint-sixth on the all-time leaderboard.
Meanwhile, PSG would become the 24th team to win Europe's biggest prize.
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Paris Saint-Germain, along with Arsenal, are among the most high-profile European teams to have never won the Champions League. And should they win in Munich later on, they will have created history for a few reasons.
Most notably among them is the fact that they will have become the first French ever to win the treble — Ligue 1, Coupe de France and Champions League.
They would join the list of eight European teams to have achieved that feat previously: Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Celtic, Inter, Manchester City, Manchester United and PSV.
For much of the season, it looked as though Inter were well set to win all three major trophies on offer to them, but they were beaten in the semi-final of the Coppa Italia and missed out on the Serie A title to Napoli by just one point.
As I mentioned, this isn't either of these two teams' first rodeo.
Inter have better Champions League final pedigree than most as this is their seventh time playing for European football's most iconic trophy — their record in their six previous finals looks like this:
As for PSG, they have been in this position just once before:
We started with 36 teams back in September and, 187 games later, we are down to just two.
It is Paris Saint-Germain of France and Inter of Italy and they are locking horns in Munich.
Both of them have been here before, but with varying degrees of success; Inter are three-time Champions League winners while PSG have never scaled European football's tallest mountain.
The French champions arrive for today's game as slight favourites to lift the trophy, but standing in their way is one of the game's toughest teams.

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