With one big clearance with his left foot and a clenched fist to the crowd, the PSG captain Marquinhos knew that this was done. Another English challenge seen off, a Champions League final reached. The whistle blew on this night and a step forward had been taken towards acceptance and real relevance.
And it is this the club of Qatar and the French capital craves more than anything. More than their riches and their star-studded rosters of yore. More than their endless Ligue Une titles.
It’s Europe and the Champions League that drives PSG. Until they have that trophy and wear that crown, they know they will not be part of the only club that really matters.
Only such a triumph will see them free of a cloak of insecurity and inferiority that they wear like fake fur. And now they have only their second bite at it.
It has taken a complete transformation of style and of culture to get PSG to a final in Munich at the end of the month.
For years English clubs came here to his stadium west of Paris to play a team that was always dangerous. How could it not be with players such as Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, Lionel Messi and Angel di Maria wearing the red and blue?
Paris Saint-Germain booked their second Champions League final spot in five years with a win over Arsenal
European glory has long been the goal for the club’s Qatari ownership (club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi pictured centre)
PSG have become a daunting presence under Luis Enrique and Arsenal fell victim to their new-look squad
But dangerous is not the same as daunting and not the same as formidable. PSG carry a different kind of European cache now and it proved too much for Arsenal here just as it had over two legs for Aston Villa and Liverpool.
To have knocked out three Premier League teams will mean a huge amount to coach Luis Enrique and his club. The Premier League’s claim to be the world’s best rankles across Europe.
Enrique, a Spaniard, turned his nose up at the idea before last week’s first leg at the Emirates and here he had his glorious vindication.
This is a proper PSG team, at last. After their beauty parades of years gone by, Version 2025 knows how to get a job done and here it was too good for an Arsenal team that will rue how poorly it played at the Emirates eight days earlier.
There are few football seasons that don’t end with some regrets and maybe Arsenal’s will do so with thoughts lingering on last week and a league defeat to West Ham back in late February. Both games presented clear opportunity to build on big moments and both now represent chances spurned.
That February weekend saw Arsenal humming after a dismantling of Manchester City. Liverpool were wobbling on the back of uncertain form and were due to travel to City the next day. But Arsenal lost and – heartened by that – Liverpool won.
Last week, meanwhile, PSG’s arrival offered Arteta’s team the chance to repeat their quarter-final dismissal of European champions Real Madrid. But again they faltered.
Last Tuesday’s home first leg defeat was perhaps their most demoralising of the season and left them too much to do here on a night when they were significantly better but still some way short of good enough.
But for the Gunners an opportunity to get to their first Champions League final for nearly two decades was too much
After a demoralising first-leg performance Mikel Arteta’s side were unable to fight back in Paris
Arsenal must now become a persistent force in Europe’s later stages if they are to merit a seat at the top table
So what happens next is as important for Arsenal as it is for PSG. Enrique’s team must go one better against Inter than PSG did when losing the 2020 Covid final in Lisbon. Arsenal, meanwhile, must simply build, regroup and return. It’s what the really big clubs do.
Arteta had asked his players to make history here and it was a nice line. But it’s not history that Arsenal must make now but habits.
Arsenal have been in a Champions League final before. Arsene Wenger’s team lost to Barcelona in 2006. But the London club have not consistently threatened a residency in the latter stages. They have never been part of a gang comprising the big Spanish and Italian teams and, more recently, Liverpool and City.
And this is what must change. Occasional visits are not enough. Inspiration and motivation are what they must take from a journey that has been encouraging but is now over.
Arsenal gave this a proper go here and Arteta’s work at the Emirates over five-and-a-half years has been progressive and brave. But it’s five years without a trophy and his claim here on Tuesday that his team have been better in the last two seasons than champions Liverpool have been in this one was as hollow as was the one that followed full-time about PSG being saved by their goalkeeper.
It is not hard to know what Arsenal must do now. They need bodies in important positions and, amid the inevitable chatter of this failure, they need some calmness as they plot their way through what must surely be a big summer of recruitment. They are a very good team but not a complete one.
PSG now have their second bite at a Champions League final. Arsenal are overdue to say the least.
