Arsenal deserved losers as Eze, Gabriel bottle penalties to gift PSG the Champions League | OneFootball

PSG retained their Champions League title with a penalty shoot-out victory over Arsenal after a 1-1 draw in a cagey final in the Puskas Arena on Saturday.

The French champions made the worst possible start after Kai Havertz fired Arsenal into the lead in the sixth minute, lashing a rising shot past PSG goalkeeper Matvey Safonov.

From then on, Arsenal defended doggedly, with Gabriel Magalhaes and Piero Hincapie in particular standing up tall against PSG’s plethora of world class forwards.

It looked like PSG would find no way through the meanest defence in Europe but Ousmane Dembele levelled from the penalty spot in the 65th minute after a foul by Cristhian Mosquera on Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.

The Parisians were the only side that looked like winning the contest in normal time, though Luis Enrique’s men, despite dominating the shots count and possession stakes, could not find the telling breakthrough.

A scrappy period of extra time could not separate the sides either, setting up a nail-biting penalty shoot-out to determine whether PSG would go back-to-back or Arsenal would lift their first ever European Cup/Champions League.

Unfortunately for the Gunners, both Eberechi Eze and Gabriel missed the target entirely with their respective spot-kicks.

Eze curled his shot wide of the goal after a stutter step that drew the ire of the TNT Sports commentators.

Gabriel – with the fifth and decisive spot-kick that handed PSG the win – blazed over the bar.

Arsenal’s historic season that did result in the club winning their first Premier League title since 2004 thus ended on the sourest of notes.

Had the Gunners kept their nerve in the shoot-out, they could have completed what would unquestionably have been the greatest season in Arsenal history.