Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan lock horns in Saturday’s Champions League final with the French side hoping to win European club football’s biggest prize for the first time and the Italians eyeing their fourth title.
The match, which kicks off at Bayern Munich’s 75,000-capacity Allianz Arena at 9:00pm (1900 GMT), pits an experienced Inter against a PSG team appearing in their second final since the transformative Qatari takeover of the club in 2011.
Whoever wins will succeed Real Madrid as champions, and excitement is notably at fever pitch back in Paris.
Around 40,000 people will watch on giant screens at PSG’s Parc des Princes and over 5,000 police officers will be deployed around the city in an attempt to prevent trouble.
The match will be a mouthwatering clash of opposing styles and ideas of how to build a team, a contest between one of the continent’s old guard and one of the state-owned modern superclubs.
Despite enormous spending, PSG have never won the Champions League, coming closest when they reached the final in 2020.
That was during the pandemic, when they lost to Bayern behind closed doors in Lisbon, despite the presence of Kylian Mbappe and Neymar up front.
The addition of Lionel Messi in 2021 did not help them in their quest to claim the trophy, and their brilliant run to Munich has come in the season after Mbappe followed the South American duo out of the exit door.