Can Arsenal finally become Champions of Europe?: European Nights 05/26/26

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2:01Start planning your journey at meninblazers.com backslash cityguides. guides. You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network Suboptimal Radio Champions League final time. Does that indomitable defending champion PSG have any vulnerabilities Arsenal can exploit? Sometimes they concede corners. Arsenal. Once you win that first trophy, rest come easy, yeah? Well the pressure is off now, Rog. They should be able to cut loose. And in the Conference League, can the rest of Europe keep pace with the most powerful force in football? Mid-level Premier League team's relative financial might. The current rate of progress, Rog, no.

2:52It's Rog, it's Rory, it's European Knights Champions League final preview. Also touch upon that Scrappy-Doo Conference League final edition Crystal Palace. Fans, are you ready? I want to give huge thanks to Bank of America, official Bank of US Soccer and the FIFA World Cup 2026 for supporting the Men in Blazers media network. Discover what's possible in sports and in life. What would you like the power to do? But let us begin with the big one. First Champions League final to feature two league title winners since 2020. Clash of Styles, a rumble over auras, an ethos arsehole obsessed with control, precision, pounding meatball set pieces.

3:31I'm afraid they're the 1-0 win against Mikel Arteta's first senior team as a player Paris Saint-Germain Bonnie René and the Guardian called them quote the best team in the world state-of-the-art, so smooth, surgical and handsomely tuned they could almost be an AI simulation of a perfect human football movement Roar, what should we brace ourselves stylistically to witness in Budapest on Saturday May 30th, 3pm Eastern? Yeah, it does feel as though it's one of those finals where styles make fights and there is a distinction between Arsenal and PSG and it's tempting and it's a bit lazy to make it out as attack versus defence.

4:07It's kind of Arsenal's caution and control against this freewheeling PSG side. I actually think that obviously diminishes Arsenal and how good they can be. It also maybe doesn't give quite enough credit to Luis Enrique for the coaching job he's done with PSG, just how smoothly interlocking that whole structure is. there is a degree of kind of virtuosity to PSG, particularly when they attack. But that only happens because they have kind of a structure behind them that enables them to do that. But I think the crucial thing, Rog, is that we'll see two teams who are masters of their chosen style. That's really what you want.

4:42Not that one style is better than the other. It's that they are two different styles. They do have different emphases. But they are both accomplished to the highest possible level. You make it sound like an incredible 1970s martial art flick. Look at Arsenal, Premier League champions. Let me say that again. Arsenal, you're Premier League champions. Surreal. Emotional words to come out of our mouths after 22 long years of dreaming. Finally happened, haters. Yeah, Arsenal, they won the Premier League and now they could win the Champions League for the first time in club history. We talked a lot on this show.

5:16Arsenal are arguably the biggest team in Europe never to do it. They were last here in the final 2006, 20 years ago in Paris, where a Thierry Henry-led team lost to Barcelona and then had to suffer the separation agony of Henry decamping to the camp now right afterwards. They've won FA Cup trinkets and tchotchkes, you know, littered along the way. Big dreams, shattered dreams, catastrophizing. I found it humanly moving to see this team overcome probably their most painful fears, their traumas born of three consecutive second-place finishes, perseverance, mental acuity, We talked on the podcast on Friday about the courage of this team.

5:58Every time they were expected to fold, they found a way to steady themselves, to grind through it, to persevere. So, Ruan, no joke, are titles like buses? We always say, unless you've won one, you don't know how to win one, which makes no sense at all. Have they now? Won one, flip the switch, and a cavalcade of trophies will now follow. Does this become easier, wait off? Well, far better kind of footballing minds than mine, Rog. will tell you that, yeah, it does kind of work a bit like that. That once you've won the first major one, the one that kind of breaks the seal, then I guess you develop the taste for it, is the best way to put it.

6:32I suppose you have an inner confidence that you can do it, which, you know, it's a sport of really fine margins, and that just gives you that extra 0.0001 % that you need in these games, in these moments, in these occasions. So I do think that the fact that Arsenal won the Premier League without playing last Tuesday, is genuinely a significant factor in this game. They won't have had the stress over the weekend, obviously, of thinking they had to go to Crystal Palace and desperately needing to win to stave off Manchester City. That makes the preparation a bit easier. But they've also had that chance to get used to the idea, to live in that moment of being winners.

7:09That was the one big doubt about Arsenal for the last four years as they had those second places, whether they could get over the line, whether they could, in those clutch moments, deliver. They know that they can now, especially, to be honest, the way they won the Premier League, having suffered that defeat at City and then coming back to hold their nerve again. That's the sort of thing that if you're Mikel Arteta, you will come up with some convoluted metaphor around in your team talk before the final. You know, it's the sort of thing that does change how players see themselves. And that I think is important.

7:40Yeah, I mean, it has been a human wonder to witness. And one aspect that we don't talk about enough with this super squad is just how many injuries they experienced over the season. And April, I feel like most of the team's core was in the physios cryogenic freeze machine or whatever they used. They had Saka, Odegaard, Mourinho, Havertz coming out. Most of the fullbacks on staff in there. Mikel Arteta, that hair-helmeted mastermind, trying to move towards infinity more control. Had Arsenal relying on harder training sessions and more, more, more. And Miguel Delaney in the independent row about how probably the most laid-back player on the roster, Eberichie Eze, was the one who went up to his manager.

8:19Essentially he said, can we just chill? a tiny bit. Can we tone it down? And Arteta, to his credit, listened. Trained less, days off, increased week before the title. I think they had three days off and even a barbecue. Mmm, burnt ends. Also turned off the TV and the news at the training ground to lessen the noise, to try and smother it. I love the detail in Delaney's piece about how they played music instead from the 90s and 2000s, the time they last won the title. That is proper Arteta detail. Not just any music, but winning music. I can't wait to get my hands, I've got to say, on that playlist.

8:56But this is a generationally defensively talented team. It really is. Again, I've said in America, in the NFL, we would have come out with a nickname for this backline. It's impenetrable. It's unmovable. A bit like Mikel's hair. Six goals conceded in the Champions League all season. But I am old enough to remember, in the semifinals, Vincent Kompany straight out said, the PSG team cannot just be defended. You have to go after them. And he did blitzkrieg of a game. Both teams unloading all they had. And remember, this is the team that levelled Inter, levelled them in the final last year, 5-0, just obliterated the team.

9:32They weren't cautious. Bayern knew they couldn't keep them out. And the question is, can Arsenal? I think they'll present them with a bigger challenge than anybody else has so far this season, Rog, to be honest. Because even Luis Enrique, I think, has said that Arsenal have got the best defence in Europe. They are much more suited to trying to shut PSG down than Bayern, than Liverpool, than the other teams that PSG have faced in the Champions League this season and obviously the ones that they faced in France as well. I think PSG have greater attacking firepower and to watch them is to feel that they are unstoppable.

10:01But then I'm not sure they'll have come up against a defence quite as well organised, quite as obdurate, quite as strong, quite as physically imposing as Arsenal's. So it is a real challenge for PSG. There is an element of unstoppable force in it. It's the immovable object about it. And that's not meant as a criticism for Arsenal. generally in domestic leads and in Europe, having the best defence is a pretty good way of ensuring ultimate victory. In America, we say pitching wins championships.

10:33But Arteta's focus on glory has been about margins. A huge trove of leverage in that strategy has come from, well, set pieces. Arsenal posted the lowest proportion of open play goals for an English champion. After a 4-1 Christmas win over Aston Villa, the players were chanting set pieces again. Ole, ole in the locker room. They've had 18 so far, which is a league record in the Premier League alone. And Nicholas Yeover, the set piece coach, has become a household name across England. It's his corner routines that are a thing of wonder, very much like an NFL playbook. Altered the landscape, both in England and in Europe.

11:11we've seen teams one by one follow suit. They too can train to stay ahead. You know, the meatball swarming of the keepers on corners. And the question is intriguing here, Roar. PSG, whose own kind of whirring, scything press, defensively facing them in its own right, how will they cope with this strategy that they might not have had to deal with week in, week out in league play? Well, they certainly want to face the team that's as good at it as Arsenal. I think that the corner revolution has probably touched down in France already, but they won't have run into a side that are so accomplished from corners that seem to be able to maintain that advantage over the course of the season.

11:46We saw Arsenal's corners make a massive difference in the first half of last season and then it kind of dried up as teams worked out how to stop them. That's not happened this time around because they've changed up what they do. They had a couple of weeks at one point where they were taking them short again and it seemed that nobody knew what to do. Against Newcastle over and over and over again. By the way, I asked Arteta the week before this season started, I said to him, because you and I talked about it, you did the corner thing, everyone worked you out. How do you, what do you do with that?

12:14And he just smiled and winked. And he said, we come up with some more corners. Ultimately, it's what they've done. They have. And I think that will genuinely be a problem for Paris Saint-Germain, that they will have to find a way of counteracting what Arsenal can do to them on set pieces, whether they're corners or long throws, Rog. I think PSG are probably a little bit more defensively secure than people will give them credit for. They're not stupid. They're not naive. they're not inexperienced and if you watch the second leg of the semi-final against Bayern they controlled that game perfectly they didn't really allow Bayern a sniff until very very late on and they will have to try and do the same against Arsenal but they'll be well aware that Arsenal don't need to play brilliantly to create chances what they need to do is force corners force throw-ins and then try and seek their advantages there it's worked for them all season and PSG won't be immune to it well let's talk about PSG the team seeking to become the first club to win back-to-back Champions League since Real Madrid won three in a row between 2016 and 2018.

13:14PSG really, the janus face of world football, half gas money plaything, half manifestation of every single footballing philosopher's deepest inner desires. They are freshly crowned for a fifth time as League One champions.

13:32On est champions. On est champions. Let's begin with the positives about this team, about their attacking prowess, the holy trinity of Usman Dembélé, Bradley Barcola and Kovicja Karatskelia, plus a little sprinkle of Desiree Dway, that extra, extra zest. That 5-4 frantic hyperball first leg against Bayern, the unlikely hero of the clash in that second leg, was a brick wall defensive setup that would have made Jose Mourinho proud if he wasn't side texting Florentino Perez instead of watching the game. PSG's 34 % possession against Bayern in that second leg, their lowest in any game, any competition, more than five years, took their cocaine bear identity and completely reinvented it into a masterclass partner bus from one leg to the next.

14:21So, Roar, question I ask you up top flippantly, let's get into it. Do they have a weakness? I'm not an opposition stout, Rog, but I'd say there's two things that Arsenal will probably look at. One is the goalkeeper, which is the one area that strategically, I think, PSG have messed up a little bit. They sold Gianluigi Donnarumma last summer to Manchester City. It wasn't entirely obvious why they wanted to get rid of Donnarumma, but Luis Enrique and Luis Campos, the sporting director, seemed determined that that had to happen. And they replaced him with Lucas Chevalier from Lille. That has not worked out.

14:53Chevalier is no longer PSG's first-choice goalkeeper. and instead you have Matvei Safanov, a Russian who was signed as a reserve, I think he was originally signed as their third choice goalkeeper, who's taken Chevalier's place and is fine, but he's not an elite class goalkeeper. No one is discussing whether Safanov is one of the best goalkeepers in the world. That's not a thing that's happening. He can be a little bit erratic and obviously against a team like Arsenal with the whole set piece thing, that's an issue. The other thing that I think we might see is Arsenal borrowing a little page from the Chelsea playbook from last year's Club World Cup final, which is that Nuno Mendes and we assume Warren Zaire Emery, who will play right back instead of Ashraf Hakimi, who's injured, they leave a lot of space behind them.

15:38And Arsenal, I suspect, will look at that and think, well, the way you hurt PSG is that when you win the ball back, you go and take those spaces. You do the old kung fu thing of turning their strength into their weakness. I think they're the two things that Arsenal will look at. that yeah, if you can put pressure on Safinov, he's probably a weak point and there is space behind those fullbacks. Yeah, I love Safinov. He looks more like Mackenzie Crooks from the English office than an elite athlete. He actually looks more like Mackenzie Crooks than Mackenzie Crooks does nowadays. Raw, Luis Enrique, a man who encompasses everything, everywhere, all at once.

16:12A style of football that honestly is sometimes overlooked. Their pressing ability is utterly suffocating. We look at pressing with Marvel in the Premier League. what PSG is, is terrifying. It's tenacious. It just takes you into a world of pain, kind of upside down. It's only known in Hawkins, Indiana. Ultimately, Luis Enrique does not like to explain his tactics for us mere muggles who don't understand them. He said this all-out kind of defensive blitz-style chess football. He said, we have players who can perform well in different positions, which is as much as I'll say, it's the kind of cutting analysis that people really love in this podcast.

16:51Raw, the quote's doll. The football is utterly scintillating. Watching Nuno Mendes, you know, sprint Usain Bolt style up and down the pitch. Dembele harassing opposing goalkeepers with the figure of Pep Guardiola accosting a fourth official. It's always like watching a bank heist and a modern dance performance all rolled into one. Manuel Neuer, one of the greatest keepers of his generation, looked utterly bereft, lost, shell-shocked and alone in that first leg. It's a bit like trying to move the ball through a hurricane. How does this PSG press work? What makes it different? And is there a way to find space?

17:26It slithers, crevices through its clutches? Well, I mean, the way that all presses work at that level is to do with triggers, Rog. The players are obviously so well-trained that they know exactly when they jump into the press. They pick their moments. They go in numbers. You don't go alone. You don't go in twos. You make sure you go in numbers. You close off all the angles. and you do get that impression that you had against Bayern at times, particularly in that second leg, that there is no pass on. That whether it's the goalkeeper or a defender, there is no pass to make except sometimes one that goes backwards or you go long, you play hopeful.

18:00And it's testament again to Luis Enrique's coaching just as much as the freewheeling attacking play, the fact that their press is so effective, that it's so well drilled, so well oiled. It's testament to the work that he has done to turn them into a unit. but what I think makes them different is that to press like that, players end up out of position, they end up in areas that traditionally they'd be uncomfortable in and they'd need their teammates to cover them which would mean the teammates were in uncomfortable areas. That doesn't really apply with PSG because there are times watching them when you realise that their front two is Nuno Mendes and Ashraf Khimi and everyone looks like they're enjoying themselves.

18:36Dembele will slot in as a defensive midfielder for a bit and not care about it and I think that's what's really remarkable about this PSG is that all of their players, it's not just that they can play anywhere in the sense that any talented footballer can do a job in a position for a little bit. It's the fact that all of the players look so comfortable interchanging positions all of the time. And only very rarely, it happened a couple of times against Bayern in the first leg, do they lose their shape because of it. They always seem like they're organised even when it looks from the outside like it might be chaos.

19:08One player we do need to look at quickly because I love him and because I think he's going to be definitive in this game, the Georgian gent with the cracked iPhone that you broke news of exclusively. He's a dear and personal friend of yours, Roar. Kvaradona, this will be a tactical battle. Ben White's injured, knee ligament. You know, what people do to not have to play for England. During Timber, groin injury not clear for you. He's going to be fit to play. I know that Mikel Arteta has kind of manifested into being possible. How do you mark Kvaradona? are also destined to all become like Pierrot Hincape against Burnley just left showing their bum.

19:44I think if Timber can be anywhere near fit, then I think Arteta will be desperate for him to play. You could make a case that until his injury, Timber had been Arsenal's best player this season. Him being back in their side would make a huge difference. I guess it's a risk because he's been out for sufficiently long that it's not entirely clear to me that he could slot straight back in. But he would be the ideal candidate. And then I think if he's not available, it probably has to be Mosquera, just because you need that defensive cover. You need someone who is comfortable there. You can't take the risk of playing a midfielder, shifting them back there.

20:17You're better off having someone who's almost sort of set out just to mark Rarchgelia rather than trying to kind of do anything too clever. Is he the main threat? He's maybe the most informed threat.

20:32So, Ro, it's time. What's your prediction for this game? What's going to happen? I think it will be a really enthralling final, Roger. I don't think it will look much like last year's final. I don't see PSG blitzing Arsenal off the field. I think they will look like the more exciting attacking unit. I think they will probably have more of the ball. I think they'll probably have more chances. But sometimes the immovable object beats the unstoppable force. And I genuinely think that having locked up the title, having broken that seal, there will be a real confidence, a real inner belief about Arsenal.

21:03Only one team's retained the Champions League in the last 35 years. and that's Real Madrid it's really hard to do there'll be a lot of pressure on PSG they won't be feeling that sort of freedom that Arsenal do I think that Arsenal thanks to a header from Gabriel from a corner get over the line and at last shake off that identity as being the biggest club in Europe that's never won the European Cup Anne Hathaway and Spike Lee will be on the lash for a week and after the break we are crystal palacing

21:39Adam Wharton's mum proper Crystal Palace is almost definitely on the way to Leipzig as we speak for a Conference League final Wednesday 3pm Eastern exactly 13 years to the day from the playoff final that put Crystal Palace into the Premier League it's astonishing days we're witnessing earlier this season we went to Palace spoke with chairman and co-owner of Steve Parrish about this club's revolutionary rise. You'll find that show in our show notes. Talks about the gambles they took that have paid off. The hiring of Oliver Glasner, which has led to an FA Cup trophy. That was meant to be the peak in the 120-year history.

22:16But here they are, again, facing tiny Raya Vallecano in the Conference League final. They're an incredible story in their own right. They still don't sell tickets online. Fans line up to buy them. I suppose you can do that when you're a tiny gem of a stadium, one of the smallest in Europe. holds just 14 ,708 people and they're the team that Andoni Erola emerged from now managed by his old assistant Inigo Perez and overperforming much of the same way Bournemouth do. But Raw, Aston Villa win the Europa League last week Tottenham last year, Chelsea winning the Conference League last season are we seeing the Premier League pull away in the second and third tier European tournament where no other league can compete can even touch with mid-level Premier League clubs financially?

22:59Well yeah that's definitely true Rog that if you look at Villa's budget compared to Freiburg's, I think they pay four times the wages or something. They have a huge amount more money than the teams that they're competing with. And I think that will probably be true of Palace and Rayo Vallecano as well. Rayo are a slightly different case. They are always an underdog. They will be happy to feel like that. They're an underdog in Spain as well. But Palace ultimately have access to a far higher calibre of players. They can pay them more money. And we know that across football, outcomes are almost directly proportional to wage spend.

23:30I think the one thing that I've thought about this a lot over the last few days obviously it's been a big topic of conversation in England because there is this kind of increasing dominance of the Europa League and the Conference League in particular it might be that this is the first time in history that England has swept all three major European competitions as well I think the one thing that changes with the Europa League and the Conference League is it does depend a little bit on which teams qualify from the other major leagues in Europe so this season it was a slightly odd set of sides that got through so Bologna qualified from Serie A and then promptly had quite a poor year domestically they they've kind of they are on the downside of their cycle in the Europa League next season it might be the Juventus are in the are in the Europa League and that does that changes a little bit you know we know Real Sociedad will be back they will be back stronger because they have been in Europe before so I don't know if it It necessarily means that every year from here on in, English teams will dominate Europe, particularly these two sort of lesser competitions.