376 matches in the 2024-25 UEFA Champions League have been played. Only one remains.
The last two teams standing both wear blue, and they’ve never faced each other in a competitive setting before. Perhaps it’s fitting that, in a history-making 2024-25 Champions League that saw the tournament’s first-ever expansion to 36 teams, Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain will match up for the first time. It might be even more fitting if PSG wins, given that it’ll be the first time the French giant has ever lifted the most famous piece of silverware in European football.
How they got to this point differs.
Paris limped its way through the league phase, winning four matches, drawing one, and losing three, finishing just 15th in the table. In the competition’s first eight matches, the eventual Ligue 1 champions had a mediocre attack and a strong defense. But the knockout stages have been a different story. A 10-0 aggregate win over compatriots Brest in the knockout playoffs, the second-biggest win in the competition’s history, set the tone. Then, they saw off three English clubs en route to the final — first, they ousted Premier League champions Liverpool in a penalty shootout, held on against Aston Villa in a 5-4 aggregate thriller, and made a statement with a 3-1 aggregate win over Arsenal. PSG has also claimed the Ligue 1 title and will play Reims in the Coupe de France final on May 24, aiming for its first-ever treble.
Inter — the 1964, 1965, and 2010 champions and the 2023 runners-up — made quick work of the league phase, winning six of its eight matches to finish fourth and holding a clean sheet in all but one. A 4-1 aggregate win over Feyenoord in the Round of 16 was expected, but holding on to oust German champions Bayern Münich in the quarterfinals was a little more surprising. Then came the two-legged semifinal affair against Barcelona, the likely league winners in Spain. The first leg was an all-time classic, featuring Barça coming back from two goals down even though veteran Nerazzurri defender Denzel Dumfries recorded an unlikely brace. The second leg — in which a furious Blaugrana comeback was thwarted by two assists from Dumfries and a late equalizing goal by Francesco Acerbi, his first of the season — was somehow even better. When the dust settled, 13 goals had been scored across the two legs, tying the record for the most in the competition’s history.
When these two sides take the pitch on May 31 at the Allianz Arena in Münich, those journeys to the final are irrelevant, only the 90 minutes between whistle and whistle.
It should be a close match; at DraftKings Sportsbook, Paris is an early +120 favorite, with Inter at +225, and there are +230 odds that the game will require extra time and, possibly, a shootout. We don’t know who will win, but we can feel confident that it’ll produce a classic worth remembering.
