Key Points
- PSG beat Arsenal 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in Budapest.
- It is PSG's second straight Champions League title.
- Eberechi Eze and Gabriel both missed in the shootout for Arsenal.
- PSG are the first repeat winner since Real Madrid's 2014-2017 run.
Paris Saint-Germain are champions of Europe again. At the Puskás Aréna in Budapest on May 30, PSG beat Arsenal 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw through extra time, lifting back-to-back Champions League titles and becoming the first club to repeat since Real Madrid's three-in-a-row from 2014 to 2017.
Arsenal struck first through Kai Havertz inside the opening exchanges. PSG drew level from the spot — Ousmane Dembélé converting the penalty after Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was fouled by Cristhian Mosquera. From there it stayed deadlocked until the shootout, where Gonçalo Ramos, Désiré Doué, Achraf Hakimi and Lucas Beraldo all converted, while Eberechi Eze and Gabriel missed for Arsenal — Gabriel skying the decisive kick over the bar.
The result is the clearest sign yet that PSG's long, expensive project has finally cohered into something durable. For more than a decade the club was a punchline about money without trophies; now it has a repeat title built less on galácticos than on a young, fluid core — Doué, Kvaratskhelia, Hakimi — that bends games rather than buys them. Back-to-back European cups is the threshold that separates a good team from a dynasty, and PSG just crossed it.
For Arsenal, it's the cruelest kind of progress. Mikel Arteta's side reached the sport's biggest stage and lost it on the thinnest margin, a penalty shootout — a near-miss in a European season that has not been kind to the Premier League's giants, with Liverpool parting ways with Arne Slot after a dismal title defense. Getting to the final is the hard part. Losing it this way is the part that lingers.
Source: Al Jazeera, CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports
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