PSG wins back-to-back Champions League titles after shootout victory against Arsenal

Paris Saint-Ger­main won back-to-back Cham­pi­ons League tro­phies by beat­ing Ar­se­nal on penal­ties in a dra­mat­ic fi­nal in Puskas Are­na on Sat­ur­day.

Ar­se­nal de­fend­er Gabriel Ma­g­a­l­haes fired the last of his team’s penal­ties over the bar to hand PSG a 4-3 shootout vic­to­ry.

“It’s in­cred­i­ble, back-to-back,” PSG cap­tain Mar­quin­hos said. “From the very first day of this sea­son the coach said it’s hard to win, and win­ning twice is even more dif­fi­cult. So we all had to get back to work. That was the men­tal­i­ty.”

The game was 1-1 at the end of reg­u­la­tion time and ex­tra time, send­ing the game to spot kicks.

Ar­se­nal led af­ter six min­utes when Kai Havertz broke away and blast­ed past PSG goal­keep­er Matvey Sa­fonov. But the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on dom­i­nat­ed pos­ses­sion and Ous­mane Dem­bélé lev­elled from the penal­ty spot in the 65th to take the fi­nal to ex­tra time for the first time in 10 years.

Eberechi Eze al­so missed an ear­li­er spot kick, but David Raya saved from Nuno Mendes to keep Ar­se­nal lev­el.

Lu­cas Be­ral­do scored the last of PSG’s spot kicks, mean­ing Gabriel had to con­vert to take it to sud­den death. But he blast­ed high over the bar to spark cel­e­bra­tions from PSG play­ers and fans in­side Puskas Are­na.

“It’s even more spe­cial be­cause we knew be­fore the match how dif­fi­cult it would be,” PSG coach Luis En­rique said. “I think it’s de­served over the course of the whole sea­son, even if the fi­nal was very close­ly con­test­ed.” —BU­DAPEST, Hun­gary (AP)

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Sto­ry by JAMES ROB­SON | As­so­ci­at­ed Press