European soccer heavyweights clash in Champions League final

Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain will meet at the UEFA Champions League final in Munich on Saturday to compete for club soccer’s most prestigious trophy.

Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain will meet at the UEFA Champions League final in Munich on Saturday to compete for club soccer’s most prestigious trophy. For the Parisian team, a victory would cement the squad in the pantheon of soccer royalty.

Paris Saint-Germain, colloquially known as PSG, was once mediocrity personified. Before 2011, the team languished in the French soccer league Ligue 1 and twice narrowly escaped relegation to a lower division.

But 14 years ago, everything changed. Qatar Sports Investments, a state-backed subsidiary of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, bought the team and injected billions of dollars. Superstars like Zlatan Ibrahimović and David Beckham joined in the early days of PSG’s new era.

More recently, the Qatari cash brought in the tantalizing trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé. In the 14 seasons since the new ownership took hold, PSG has dominated its domestic league, winning Ligue 1 11 times.

Despite clobbering the competition in France, a Champions League title has always evaded PSG. It was close in 2020, losing to German giant Bayern Munich in the final. Failure to bring home that trophy led neutral fans to dismiss its merits. PSG has long been considered the rich kid on the field, with fancy cleats but without the play to back it up.