Champions final finally arrives
LISBON, Portugal — After an unprecedented suspension of the competition, pandemic-enforced changes to the format and a switch of location for the final, the Champions League will conclude today — 425 days after the first game was played.
Either Paris Saint-Germain will pick up the European Cup for the first time or Bayern Munich will become six-time winners of the continent’s premier competition.
And just a few hundred people, including the coronavirus-checked players and officials, will be allowed into the final, which is being played in Lisbon in late August rather than Istanbul in May as originally scheduled.
Never before has the European Cup been handed out in such empty surroundings. There’s none of the usual gathering of tens of thousands of supporters in the host city. Only the large trophy in Rossio — Lisbon’s main central square — gives away that the biggest match in world football is taking place in the Portuguese capital.
Around Benfica’s stadium, there is not a single sign indicating a game due to be watched on television by hundreds of millions of people will be played inside.
The lack of buzz and atmosphere at this 65th European Cup final will not detract from the magnitude of the occasion for the teams. For the first time since 1998, the final is a meeting of two teams who qualified as domestic champions.
PSG’S MISSION
Celebrating the 50th anniversary since its formation — after the merger of Paris clubs — PSG is younger than the 65-year-old European Cup. Becoming European champions would be the fulfillment of a nine-year journey of lavish investment since the state of Qatar bought the club.
“They will be the most important 90 minutes of our lives as footballers and in the history of the club,” said Marco Verratti, who has been at PSG eight years.
More than $1 billion in player investment has turned PSG into such a dominant force in France that the seasons become a procession. Seven out of the last eight Ligue 1 titles have been captured by PSG.
But PSG had become synonymous with its Champions League collapses, failing to make the semifinals for a quarter-century until this month in Lisbon.
BAYERN’S QUEST
Since winning the Champions League for a fifth time in 2013, Bayern has lost four semifinals — to record 13time champion Real Madrid (twice), Atletico Madrid and Barcelona.
Founded in 1900, Bayern established itself as a super club long before states started investing in the sport. Whereas PSG is an extension of soft power by Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, at Bayern it is the fans who control the club through a mass membership system.
But a quarter of the business is owned by the sportswear firm Adidas, insurance giant Allianz and carmaker Audi. And the acceptance of sponsorship from stateowned Qatar Airways since 2018 has seen the club denounced by human rights groups for accepting financing from a Gulf nation where migrant workers have faced inhumane working conditions.