Key events
The head-to-head
Arsenal have never lost to Paris Saint-Germain, though it’s a small sample size. These are their previous meetings.
Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final, 1993-94
I think the chant “1-0 to the Arsenal” was born in the first leg of that game, when they were ahead at half-time. Either that or I’ve been dreaming about Arsenal and the Pet Shop Boys again.
Champions League group stage, 2016-17
Champions League league state, 2024-25
Preamble
Tonight, on a blissful spring evening in North London, 60,000 virgins will assemble in a a four-tiered bowl with polycarbonate roofing. We should probably explain that, eh.
Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain, who meet at the Emirates Stadium in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final, are arguably the biggest clubs never to become champions of Europe. That gives tonight’s game a unique excitement: it’s both a heavyweight clash and a meeting of wide-eyed dreamers.
The last time Arsenal played in a Champions League semi-final, in May 2009, even Myles Lewis-Skelly, aged 2, barely know who the eff Myles Lewis-Skelly was. This is PSG’s fourth semi-final in the last six years, by contrast, but their first without Eminem. That’s another feature of this game – the two teams are just that, with an emphasis on the collective and an absence of galacticos.
If you combined all the votes in last year’s Ballon d’Or for the 22 players involved tonight, they’d still only have finished 18th. This is going to change in the future, perhaps the very near future. But that’s the point: right now, at 6pm BST on 29 April 2025, the players and fans of Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain have it all ahead of them.
Kick off 8pm.
