Ahead of Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Inter, we identify six key elements that could be decisive in Munich.
The European club football season reaches its climax on Saturday night, as Paris Saint-Germain and Inter face off in the UEFA Champions League final in Munich.
PSG, long considered the competition’s nearly-men, are chasing their first-ever Champions League title. Inter, by contrast, are aiming to lift the trophy for a fourth time — and for the first time since 2010 — at the Allianz Arena.
For PSG, this encounter marks the final piece of what would be a historic treble; a win would make them the first French club ever to achieve the feat. Inter, meanwhile, are desperate to avoid ending the season empty-handed, having been in contention for a treble themselves just a month ago.
Here, we’ve outlined six factors that may impact whether the Champions League trophy heads to Paris or Milan…
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While PSG vs Barcelona might have been the tie the neutrals were hoping for, this match-up offers a fascinating clash between two very different styles of play. And let’s not forget how compelling the semi-final between Inter and Barcelona was, despite both sides operating in very different ways.
PSG will look to get on the ball and be proactive just as they always do. They’ve averaged 62.2% possession in their European games this season — the fourth-highest in the competition — while only Bayern Munich (645) have attempted more passes per game than PSG (632).
As the playing styles graphic below shows, PSG are patient in possession, building from the back and progressing the ball through the thirds.
On average, they allow opponents to make just 10 passes before making a defensive intervention (PPDA) — the joint-fourth lowest figure in the competition this season.
Simone Inzaghi’s side, on the other hand, have no interest in pressing high. Only five sides – four of whom didn’t even make it through the league phase – have recorded a higher PPDA than Inter’s 16.3 in the 2024-25 Champions League.
Inzaghi’s side will likely be comfortable letting PSG dominate possession. They’ve averaged just 47.3% of the ball across the campaign, and even less in their knockout ties against Bayern (40.3%) and Barcelona (29.4%). Inter are happy to soak up pressure before looking to break quickly in transition.
The contrast is clear when looking at the two sides’ zones of control – areas of the pitch where they dominate possession – which visually highlight their differing approaches out of possession.
This game will be a showdown between control and counter, possession and pragmatism. Whoever can impose their style more effectively should come out on top.
PSG Full-Backs vs Inter Wing-Backs
As is so often the case with Inter games, the wide areas will likely be key.
The marauding runs of wing-backs Denzel Dumfries and Federico Dimarco are so often how the Nerazzurri get at their opponents. No team have scored more goals from crosses than Inter (7) in the Champions League this season, with 27% of their total goals being scored from crossing situations (7/26).
Dumfries in particular made a huge impact down the right for Inter in their semi-final success over Barcelona, involved in five goals across both legs (two goals, three assists). The Netherlands international became just the third player to be involved in five goals in the semi-finals of a single Champions League season after Alessandro Del Piero in 1997-98 (6) and Roberto Firmino in 2017-18 (5).
PSG left-back Nuno Mendes will have to be on his game to stop Dumfries, but the Portuguese defender has had an excellent Champions League campaign, so will fancy his chances. Only teammate João Neves (57) has made more tackles in this season’s competition than Mendes (45), while only Federico Valverde (27) has made more than his 23 interceptions.
Mendes has also won 63% of his 184 duels; only Neves (185) has competed in more in the Champions League this season, while of those to have competed in at least 100, only Nicolás Otamendi (67.7%) and Marquinhos (63.7%) have a better success rate.
The other side of the pitch will be just as fascinating, with Achraf Hakimi likely to be up against Dimarco. The Italian likes to get forward, but will probably have plenty to do going the other way. PSG have created more chances from the right-sided attacking third (77) than any other team in the Champions League in 2024-25, with 41% of their chances created coming from that side.
Hakimi has created the most chances from open play in the competition this season (34), while only Raphinha (8) has more than his five assists. The Moroccan also has the second most attacking sequence involvements for PSG this season (345) after Ousmane Dembélé (356).
However, the best form of defence could be attack for Dimarco, who provided seven assists in Serie A for Inter this season, more than any of his teammates, while his 17 big chances created was at least four more than any other player in Italy’s top flight.
Set-Pieces Could Be the Deciding Factor
It might sound a little reductive and cliché to suggest that set-pieces could decide a one-off final like this, but… they really could.
Inter scored two of their goals in the first leg of their semi-final against Barcelona from corners, with Denzel Dumfries on the end of both. Those goals were two of 11 that Inter have scored from set-pieces (including penalties) in the Champions League this season. With 26 goals overall, that means 42% of their goals have come via set-pieces – the highest share of any team to progress beyond the league phase.
That continues the form they showed in Serie A, where they scored 17 goals from set-pieces across the campaign. That was five more than Udinese’s 12, who scored the second most. Furthermore, only Genoa (33.8%) and Cagliari (32.8%) generated a higher proportion of their shots from set-pieces than Inter (31.4%).
Defensively, set-pieces are a clear weakness for PSG. Only Rennes (12) conceded more set-piece goals than PSG’s 11. But when you consider that PSG conceded the fewest goals of any team in the division overall, their record from set-pieces looks even worse. Luis Enrique’s side conceded the highest proportion of their goals (31.1%) and the highest proportion of expected goals (21.9%) from set-pieces in Ligue 1.
Youth vs Experience
It’s also a cliché to say that Italian teams often field older players, but we have to mention it here because, frankly, that is just what Inter have done this season.
The average age of their starting XI in the Champions League in 2024-25 has been 30 years and 19 days; the oldest among all 36 teams involved.
Only Atlético Madrid (43.5%) have given a higher share of minutes to players aged 30+ in the competition this season than Inter’s 43.3%, whose 6,151 minutes by players aged 30+ is the most by a team since Juventus in 2016-17 (6,186).
Francesco Acerbi could become 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 Munich in 1999 (38 years, 66 days) and Ryan Giggs for Man Utd in 2011 (37 years, 180 days).
By comparison, PSG are the youngest side of those who progressed beyond the play-off round in the Champions League this season (24y 262d), and the fifth-youngest in the tournament overall.
They have handed 1,350 minutes to players aged 30 or over in the competition in 2024-25, all of which have been for just one player, Marquinhos.
This will be Inter’s seventh appearance in a European Cup/UEFA Champions League final, having won the trophy three times (1964, 1965 and 2010), so as a club, they have experience in this showcase event. They did lose their last final, though, beaten 1-0 by Manchester City in 2023. Potentially six or seven of the players who started for the Nerazzurri in that game could also start here, which could prove to be an advantage for them.
It will only be PSG’s second ever appearance in the competition’s final, having lost their only previous one against Bayern Munich in 2019-20 (1-0). Marquinhos is the only player from the PSG squad that night likely to feature again here, and the only member of the current team to have ever played in a Champions League final.
Inter’s wily experience and PSG’s exuberant youth have seen both get this far, but which will be more important when it comes to the final?
Can PSG Get Ahead and Stay Ahead?
Anyone who has watched Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League this season – or at least in the knockout stage – will know they are an attacking force.
In Ousmane Dembélé, they also have one of the most potent attackers in football today. The France international has 33 goals and 11 assists in all competitions this season, and has scored 25 goals since the turn of the year, with only Kylian Mbappé (29) recording more of players from Europe’s top five leagues in that time.
However, Luis Enrique’s side are more than just Dembélé in attack, with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Bradley Barcola and Désiré Doué among the best forwards in Europe, so many will expect them to give Inter all sorts of problems on Saturday.
That said, the Nerazzurri do not go behind in games very often, and on the rare occasions they do, usually don’t stay behind for long.
Inter have played 1,395 minutes of football in the Champions League this season, and have only trailed for 17 minutes overall. Even in what felt like a topsy-turvy 13-goal aggregate thriller against Barcelona in the semi-finals, Simone Inzaghi’s men were behind for just six minutes in total.
They have been behind for just 1.2% of their Champions League matches this season, trailing in three games but never for more than 370 seconds in any of them – 285 seconds against Bayer Leverkusen, 370 against Bayern Munich and 343 against Barcelona.
Inter’s reactions in various game states in the Champions League this season have been fascinating, and the neutral would be forgiven for perhaps wanting PSG to take the lead in Munich just to see what happens next.
Will It Be a Sommer or a Donnarumma Summer?
As you would expect in a Champions League final, two of the best goalkeepers in the world will be on show, aiming to keep the scoring to a minimum.
For Inter, Yann Sommer will be looking to keep up the fine form that has seen him be arguably the best ‘keeper in the whole competition in 2024-25.
Based on the quality of shots on target faced (using xG), Sommer has prevented more goals than any other goalkeeper in the Champions League this season (+5.2 – 10 goals conceded from 15.2 xG on target faced, excluding own goals).
The Swiss international’s save percentage of 81.4% is also the best in the competition of goalkeeper’s to have played in at least eight matches, while his seven clean sheets are also the most of any shot-stopper. Sommer may have conceded six goals to Barcelona in the semi-finals, but he also made 13 saves across both games.
Gianluigi Donnarumma’s overall numbers in the 2024-25 Champions League aren’t quite as impressive (+2.5 goals prevented, excluding own goals, 70.2% save percentage) but he has often come up trumps during the knockout stage.
After his penalty shootout heroics against Liverpool in the last 16, the Italian made six saves in the quarter-final second leg against Aston Villa, with two of the hosts’ three goals at Villa Park going in via deflections that gave Donnarumma no chance. He also made eight saves from nine shots on target across both legs against Arsenal in the semi-finals, including a truly stunning save from Martin Ødegaard in the second leg in Paris.
A Champions League final is an opportunity for heroes to step up, and both Sommer and Donnarumma will be hoping to get their mitts on the big trophy at the end of the evening.
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PSG vs Inter: Six Key Champions League Final Subplots Opta Analyst.
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