It would be easy to look at Saturday’s Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal and see it as a battle of attack versus defence, of beauty against pragmatism, of French elan against English doughtiness, as some sort of tussle for the soul of football. But it would not entirely be true. And where after all was the honour at Agincourt? In the vainglorious charges of the dashing French cavalry or the stoic defiance of the British archers arrayed, naked from the waist down, behind their defensive stakes?
On the one hand, the stats look stark. In the Champions League this season, Paris Saint-Germain have averaged 63.4% possession, higher than anybody apart from Barcelona; Arsenal’s figure is 52.6%, the 11th-highest of the 36 sides who made the league stage. PSG’s pass completion has been 89.3% to Arsenal’s 85.7% (third-highest to 14th-highest). PSG have scored 44 goals to Arsenal’s 29. But on the flipside, Arsenal have conceded six goals to PSG’s 22 and won 13.4 aerial duels per game to PSG’s 9.4 (sixth‑highest to 29th-highest).
