It’s time for the grand finale. As PSG and Inter prepare to face off in Munich, we look ahead to Saturday’s huge game with our UEFA Champions League final prediction and preview.
PSG vs Inter Stats: The Key Insights
Paris Saint-Germain are the favourites to win the UEFA Champions League for the first time in their history, with the Opta supercomputer giving them a 58% probability of lifting the trophy. This is the first ever competitive meeting between PSG and Inter, and is only the second European Cup/Champions League final between a French and Italian side. While PSG are appearing in their second European Cup/Champions League final, this is Inter’s seventh appearance in the showpiece match.The eyes of the footballing world will be on the Allianz Arena in Munich on Saturday as Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan go head-to-head for European glory.
Both have been Champions League runners-up in the last five years: PSG lost to Bayern Munich in 2020, while Inter were defeated by Manchester City in 2023.
Many were hoping for a thrill-a-minute clash between PSG and Barcelona, but this encounter still promises to be a thriller given the role Inter played in their exciting semi-final with Hansi Flick’s side.
PSG have arguably been Europe’s best performers this season. Luis Enrique’s team are in the hunt for a treble, having won the Ligue 1 title while they also claimed the Coupe de France last weekend.
Of teams in Europe’s top five leagues, only Barcelona (174) have scored more goals across all competitions than PSG (147), and it is only the Blaugrana who can boast a higher expected goals (xG) figure over the course of the 2024-25 campaign (145.3 to PSG’s 142.5).
PSG top the charts for shots (1,074), shots on target (450) and big chances (280), while Manchester City (2,239) are the only team to have had more touches in the opposition box than the Parisians (2,207).
Luis Enrique won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2015, and is looking to become the sixth manager to win the trophy with two different clubs, along with Carlo Ancelotti (Milan, Real Madrid), Ottmar Hitzfeld (Borussia Dortmund, Bayern), Jupp Heynckes (Real Madrid, Bayern Munich), José Mourinho (Porto and Inter) and Pep Guardiola (Barcelona and Man City).
Indeed, that success with Barça a decade ago came as part of a treble, and Luis Enrique could become just the second coach, after Guardiola, to win a treble made up of the Champions League, a major domestic trophy and league title, with two different teams.
A good omen for PSG? When their Spanish coach won the treble 10 years ago, his Barça team beat an Italian side (Juventus) in the final.
This season has seen PSG both win their most games (10) and score their most goals (33) in a single major European campaign, though there are of course now more games in the competition since its revamp this season, with PSG having to compete in a two-legged knockout play-off against Brest following a slightly bumpy expanded league phase.
They have also registered their most shots per game (18.6) in a Champions League season since 2003-04, when Opta began recording such data.
But as they proved in their thrilling semi-final victory over Barça, Inter are no pushovers.
Simone Inzaghi might have let the shackles off in those two legs against their La Liga opponents, but Inter’s success in the Champions League this term has largely been built on solid foundations. They have kept eight clean sheets, more than any other team, conceding only 11 goals (including one own goal), six of which came across that two-legged semi-final.
Integral to their defensive solidity has been the performances of goalkeeper Yann Sommer.
Based on the quality of shots on target faced (using xGOT), Sommer has prevented more goals than any other goalkeeper in the Champions League this season (+5.9 – 10 goals conceded from 15.9 xG on target faced, excluding own goals).
Sommer leads the way in the Champions League this season of goalkeepers for clean sheets (seven). Only Thibaut Courtois (52) and Emiliano Martínez (49) have registered more saves in the competition this season than the Switzerland international (48).
Their goalkeeper’s reliability has certainly been a crucial factor for Inter, who have conceded a tournament-high 214 shots. That said, their 17.3 expected goals against shows they are, in the main, giving up low-quality opportunities. Indeed, the average xG of the shots Inter have faced is just 0.08.
Ahead of Sommer, veteran campaigner Francesco Acerbi has more than played his part.
Acerbi – who scored Inter’s crucial late equaliser in the semi-final against Barcelona – could be the fourth-oldest outfield player to start a Champions League final (37 years, 110 days), behind Paolo Maldini for Milan in 2007 (38 years, 331 days), Lothar Matthäus for Bayern in 1999 (38 years, 66 days) and Ryan Giggs for Manchester United in 2011 (37 years, 180 days).
Then there is flying wing-back Denzel Dumfries, who was directly involved in five goals across the semi-final legs against Barça (two goals, three assists), as many goal contributions as in his 51 previous appearances in Europe.
Experience has been key for Inzaghi. Only Atlético Madrid (43.5%) have handed a higher share of minutes to players aged 30+ in the Champions League this season than Inter (43.3%), whose 6,151 collective minutes by players aged 30+ is the most by a team since Juventus in 2016-17 (6,186). All of the 1,350 minutes PSG have given to players aged 30 or over have been accounted for by just one player: Marquinhos.
It has certainly worked for the Serie A side. Inter have trailed for just 1.2% of their Champions League matches this season, falling behind in only three games but never for more than 370 seconds in any of them – 285 seconds against Bayer Leverkusen, 370 against Bayern and 343 against Barcelona. They have also spent the highest percentage of their time winning (50.8%).
Not that it has been all about gritty defending and grinding out results.
Inter have scored 26 Champions League goals this season; their joint most ever in a major European season, also scoring 26 in 2002-03.
They have scored two or more goals in all six knockout games and could be the third side to score 2+ goals in every knockout game including the final in a season, along with Real Madrid in 1959-60 (seven games) and Milan in 1993-94 (two games).
Two of Europe’s in-form forwards will be vying to steal the headlines.
It has been an incredible campaign for Ousmane Dembélé, who has been directly involved in 12 Champions League goals this season (eight goals, four assists); the most by a PSG player in a single season, while only Zlatan Ibrahimović in 2013-14 (10) has scored more times in a single edition of the competition.
Lautaro Martínez, meanwhile, has scored in the last 16, quarter-finals and semi-finals. Only five players have scored in those stages plus the final in one season – Frank Lampard in 2007-08, Diego Milito in 2009-10, Lionel Messi in 2010-11, Cristiano Ronaldo in 2013-14 and Sadio Mané in 2017-18.
The Argentine is also aiming to become the first Inter player to score 10 goals in a major European season, needing just one more to do so.
This will be only the second European Cup/Champions League final between an Italian and a French side, after Marseille beat Milan 1-0 in 1993. That remains the only time a French side has ever won the trophy. Incidentally, that final was also held in Munich.
In fact, this will be the fifth European Cup/Champions League final to be held in Munich. The victors in each of the previous four were winning the trophy for the very first time, a run PSG are seeking to continue (Nottingham Forest in 1979, Marseille in 1993, Dortmund in 1997, Chelsea in 2012). But, French clubs have only won two of their 15 major European finals.
PSG vs Inter Head-to-Head
When it comes to experience in major European finals, Inter – who finished second in Serie A this term – have the clear edge.
This is Inter’s seventh appearance in the European Cup/Champions League final, winning the trophy three times (1964, 1965 and 2010). They did lose their last final appearance, going down 1-0 against Man City in 2023, when Guardiola’s team won the treble.
This is PSG’s second appearance in the European Cup/Champions League final. They remain the last French side to win a major European trophy – the 1995-96 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup.
PSG have played the fourth-most games (167) without ever winning the European Cup/Champions League since it began in 1955, behind Arsenal (211), Dynamo Kyiv (185) and Atlético Madrid (176). A win in this game would see them have the most games before winning their first trophy, with Man City the current most on 116 before they won their 117th game in the final against Inter in 2023.
It is somewhat surprising, then, that this is the first ever competitive meeting between Inter and PSG. This final also marks the first meeting between Luis Enrique and Simone Inzaghi.
Both coaches have overseen 32 Champions League games across their careers, with Luis Enrique winning 20 matches and Inzaghi collecting 17 wins.
PSG vs Inter: Champions League Final Prediction
Inter are unbeaten in their last four matches against French opponents in Europe (W2 D2) since a 1-0 loss to Marseille in the 2011-12 Champions League last 16.
But the Opta supercomputer is not backing them to continue that run.
PSG came out on top in 44.6% of the 10,000 pre-match data-led simulations inside 90 minutes, while Inter did so in 29%. The game goes to extra-time and potentially penalties in the remaining 26.4% of sims.
Overall, PSG are the favourites to win the trophy according to our model, which ranks their chances at 58% to Inter’s 42%.
PSG vs Inter: Predicted Lineups
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Saturday, here are the Opta Power Rankings for both sides.
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