Champions League final tactical profiles: Explaining PSG’s wing focus and energy, Inter’s vital wingbacks

Saturday’s Champions League final (3 p.m. ET on Paramount+) promises to be an intriguing tactical battle if nothing else. At one end, the super-powered possession play of Luis Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain, arguably established as tournament favorites with their impressive win over Liverpool in the round of 16 and having offered nothing to disabuse anyone of that notion since. For PSG, their defining trait might just be the attack led by Ousmane Dembele and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the first two among many who may just deliver a moment to light up the Munich sky.

Against them, an Inter side bidding to go one better after reaching this stage in 2022. Their defense was viewed as their greatest quality early in this competition, and as they have overcome the likes of Bayern Munich and Barcelona, it has done just enough to allow their forwards to win the game at the other end.

As other such headline stories don’t quite tell the full story of these two fascinating sides, here’s a taste of what you need to know about the two contenders to be crowned European champions:

PSG: Wing wonders and high energy

In many ways, the French champions are a refreshing throwback to the pre-COVID game. The last five years have seen Europe’s elite ease back on the sheer aggression with which they play, an outcome shaped by many factors, not least a volume of games that makes it almost impossible to maintain a requisite intensity for high-pressing football. Luis Enrique does not have that problem. More than any other Paris Saint-Germain coach, he seems to have made a virtue of the competitive imbalance in Ligue 1. His most important players have often been held back in the domestic matches before big Champions League occasions, an approach that was vindicated as their fresh legs rushed through the best England had to offer.

That energy is channelled effectively. PSG’s title chops were once — correctly — derided for the simple fact that they had too many superstar attackers who did nothing defensively. Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe could all win games for Les Parisiens on their own. Put them together, and it was too easy for teams to progress the ball into midfield. Two years ago, PSG allowed 13.5 passes per defensive action, a metric that assesses the intensity with which teams press, in the Champions League. Now that number, per Wyscout, is just 9.2, the second highest in the competition. As Aston Villa could attest after giving up nine ball recoveries in their own third in a 3-1 defeat, PSG chase their opponents as a unit, making it extremely difficult to play through their press.

When PSG do get the ball back, they are exceptional at holding onto it. Only Bayern Munich, very much the curiously underwhelming side with all the right stats of this Champions League, average more passes than PSG per game and during the knockout stages only the Bavarians and Atalanta completed more in the final third. With the excellent Vitinha as the conductor, PSG are eminently capable of grinding teams down with possession. Even if they do go slow that can merely be a prelude to a burst of attacking pace, exemplified in Dembele’s match-winner at Arsenal, a 28-pass tear down that still had the look of a rapid dart into a gap in the press when, in pass No.25, Nuno Mendes rifled the ball upfield.

How do teams like Arsenal get caught out? It doesn’t help that they so rarely have fixed reference points in the front line to aim at. In their first leg defeat, Dembele’s runs into a false nine position undid them. Aston Villa were undone because Desire Doue, the nominal right winger, seemed intent on going where he pleased to devastating effect. For Liverpool, the troubles came with the sheer unpredictability of the triumvirate of Bradley Barcola, Dembele and Kvaratskhelia. If any team could argue they didn’t need the outstanding talents of Kvaratskhelia when he left Napoli in January, it was probably PSG, packed to the gills with talented young wingers. Instead, the signing has been a triumph, adding a pure spark of invention on the left to pair excellently with Dembele, among the best players in the world since his move to center forward in the winter. Before the arrival of their Georgian genius, PSG were already tracking to be one of the best teams in Europe. With him, they probably are the very best.

Inter: A new spin on a familiar formula

Their opponents, meanwhile, are one of the most intriguing tactical propositions in Europe’s elite. On paper, there ought not to be much of great note about Inter’s 3-5-2, after all the Nerazzuri have been running with a back-three system since handing the keys to Antonio Conte in 2019. The combustible Italian brought the defensive trident to the mainstream in the mid-2010s but most teams have long since returned to four-man defenses (per Opta tracking data, only six teams across the Champions League used a back three for extended minutes across more than six games this season). 

Within that small sample of teams, even fewer run with two relatively orthodox center forwards with the regularity of Simone Inzaghi. That gives Inter an almighty competitive advantage, crystallized in their 2-1 win over Bayern Munich in the quarterfinal first leg. Marcus Thuram’s dart up the gut of the defense occupies both center backs; the Frenchman’s long-honed understanding with Lautaro Martinez is such that he trusts that a backheel will find his captain unmarked to drill home.

The pairing of these two is vital to Inter’s attack, all the more so given that the midfield three of Hakan Calhanoglu, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Nicolo Barella is not as dynamic as it was two years ago when this side last reached the final. They control and it is then up to the wing backs to add greater bodies in the box. When one of those is Denzel Dumfries, he tends to leave it with something. Indeed, the Dutch international averages almost as many penalty box touches per 90 minutes, 4.5, as Martinez as well as more than Mehdi Taremi, Antoine Griezmann and Christian Pulisic. The excellent Federico Di Marco is not far behind either.

The wing backs are not the only players to push high. Crucial to a great deal of what Inter do well in possession is their wide center backs, who have license to push high up the field. Alessandro Bastoni is a particularly excellent quasi-midfielder, his average of nearly 13 final third touches per 90 putting him ahead of Calhanoglu. Inter’s center back might just be as important for them in possession as Vitinha is for PSG, a truly elite ball progressor who can carry, pass and receive into dangerous areas. Across from him, Benjamin Pavard can do something similar, albeit not at quite such an elite level.

Without the ball, it might be fair to say Inter have ridden their luck in overcoming a lot of very good teams — Manchester City, Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Barcelona all tried and failed to overcome Inzaghi. Inter have been perfectly prepared to drop deep and defend their own box, giving up the ninth-most penalty box touches of the 36 teams in the Champions League. No one has blocked more shots (per 90 Inter rank fifth in that metric) while Yann Sommer ranks in the competition’s top five for save percentage, total saves and goals prevented. The secret sauce of the Champions League’s third-best defense in terms of goals allowed per game might just be players hitting form at the right moment; will that last in Munich?