Gab MarcottiCloseGab MarcottiSenior Writer, ESPN FCGabriele Marcotti is a senior soccer writer for ESPN.com. Read his archive here and follow him on Twitter: @Marcotti.Follow on X, Sam TigheCloseSam TigheESPNSam is a writer, broadcaster and podcaster for ESPN. He will write on the Premier League, scouting and transfers.Follow on X, Julien Laurens, Sam MarsdenMultiple AuthorsMay 6, 2026, 10:31 PM ET
play1:25Moreno: Atletico were never going to score against ArsenalAle Moreno slams Atletico Madrid’s toothless display in their Champions League semifinal defeat against Arsenal.
play1:03Burley: PSG are still the best team in EuropeCraig Burley reacts to PSG’s progression to the Champions League final after eliminating Bayern Munich.
play0:56Nicol: Arsenal will be asking for trouble if they sit back vs. PSGSteve Nicol debates how Arsenal should look to approach the Champions League final vs. PSG.
Q2. Atlético Madrid’s European adventure ended in muted fashion, with Diego Simeone making some confusing subs and in doing so, bringing Antoine Griezmann’s sparkling tenure to an end as well. If you’re keeping track, Grizi is heading to MLS at the end of the season, and Simeone has been left rueing a semifinal exit to go along with his two defeat in UCL finals. Will he regret his choices, and where does he and Atleti go from here?
Q3. Well, after PSG and Bayern served up a nine-goal thriller last week, we were bound to see a different kind of second leg and the French side leaned on a strong defense — and some lucky ref decisions — to draw 1-1 at the Allianz Arena and book their spot in the May 31 final. Kane was limited to just five touches in the penalty area, and the wide threat from Luis Díaz and Michael Olise just never materialized. How did you see the game?
Q4. Referee Joao Pinheiro also played a part in that second leg, waving off what appeared to be two clear handballs against PSG, one of which could have resulted in a red card for Mendes. (Neves’ arm also got in the way of a clearance inside the PSG area, for which Pinheiro briefly stopped play, only to decide everything was alright.) Should Bayern be aggrieved?
Q5. OK, so we know it’s Arsenal vs. PSG in Budapest on May 31 for the Champions League crown. Who do you think will win, and how will they do it?
Klinsmann: Arsenal fully deserve their Champions League final spot (1:26)Jurgen Klinsmann says Arsenal were superior to Atletico Madrid over the two legs of their Champions League semifinal. (1:26)
Moreno: Atletico were never going to score against ArsenalAle Moreno slams Atletico Madrid’s toothless display in their Champions League semifinal defeat against Arsenal.
Ale Moreno slams Atletico Madrid’s toothless display in their Champions League semifinal defeat against Arsenal.
Burley: PSG are still the best team in EuropeCraig Burley reacts to PSG’s progression to the Champions League final after eliminating Bayern Munich.
Craig Burley reacts to PSG’s progression to the Champions League final after eliminating Bayern Munich.
Nicol: Arsenal will be asking for trouble if they sit back vs. PSGSteve Nicol debates how Arsenal should look to approach the Champions League final vs. PSG.
Arsenal punched their ticket on Tuesday with a 1-0 (2-1 aggregate) win over Atlético Madrid, with defending champions Paris Saint-Germain joining them after hanging on for a 1-1 draw at Bayern Munich, advancing 6-5 on aggregate.
So, what to make of it all? ESPN FC writers Gab Marcotti, Sam Marsden, Julien Laurens and Sam Tighe are here to break down the action as it happened and look ahead the final on May 31.
Tighe: There’s no “arguably” here, as that was Gyökeres’ best performance for Arsenal and, most pleasingly, it came against a strong team on a big stage. (The accusation that’s followed him around all season — he mostly shows up against bad teams — has an uncomfortable amount of merit to it.)
The 27-year-old has shown huge improvement in the last few weeks, playing well in Madrid, very well against Fulham, and then superbly here. His back-to-goal work looks better and, most importantly, he’s finding his passes into the penalty box, which leads to opportunities for others. OK, he missed the big chance, but the Gunners can look elsewhere for goals.
Laurens: I don’t want to say that I told you, but I did tell you! Gyökeres was always going to need some time to adapt to the Premier League and to Arsenal. For a player with his qualities, who had only played in the Championship and the Portuguese league before, going into an Arsenal side not used to play with a traditional No. 9, and in the best and most intense league in the world, was never going to be a straightforward transition.
In Portugal, Sporting CP were built around the Sweden international and played everything through him. When he had one second to control the ball and strike it to score last season, he only has half a second to do so in England. So his first few months were tough, but you can clearly see the improvement since the turn of the year both in goals scored and involvement in matches.
It’s not perfect yet, as we saw with his missed chance on Tuesday night. However, William Saliba would have never played him that ball on the first goal a few months earlier. (It was the same for Eberechi Eze against Fulham.) Gyökeres will never score 50 goals a season and will never be Erling Haaland, but there is more to come from him for sure.
I think a lot will depend on the physical condition of these players heading into the game, and how much the Premier League title run-in has taken out of them. You can do much more with Havertz than with Gyökeres, but will you have time to think up something sophisticated if you’re going head-to-head with Manchester City every game? Probably not.
A lot will also depend on how PSG approach the game or, more aptly, how Arteta believes PSG will approach the game. At the Parc des Princes we saw PSG go man-for-man all over the pitch and Willian Pacho chase Harry Kane all the way up to the edge of the Bayern box. Gyökeres isn’t going to do that — and, if he does, you probably don’t need to chase him down — so the dynamic changes entirely.
Marsden: Gyökeres’ lack of shots is more down to how Arsenal played over the two legs than any fault of his own. As pointed out above, he is arguably in his best form of the season, and not just for Arsenal, either. He was key to Sweden making the FIFA World Cup and should be brimming with confidence.
Marcotti: Griezmann’s place in football lore is secure. He didn’t need another Champions League final to cement his place in history. To those of us who die a little bit inside every time a player leaves a very good team to join a perennial powerhouse to rack up more trophies and chase the big bucks, Griezmann will forever be a hero. (OK, I know he sort of did that when he went to Barcelona, but still: the fact that it didn’t work out is a kind of poetic justice.)
All that said, let’s not be too hard on Atlético. They lost to a team whose wage bill is around 70% higher. With a bit more nous (and a bit less Gabriel Magalhães), they could have equalized on Saliba’s back-header. And they had their chances in the first leg, mostly with Lookman.
Moreno: Atletico were never going to score against Arsenal
Tighe: It’s never fun to see players like Álvarez and Griezmann trot off the pitch (especially that early), but let’s consider this from a different angle. What is the point of having quality depth and a bench full of good attackers eager to change the game if you don’t give them a chance to do so?
Simeone brought on a slew of fully fledged internationals — one of which, Sørloth, has scored almost 40 goals in LaLiga and the Champions League in the last two years — and tried to hit Arsenal with fresher legs. That element of freshness is important for another reason too, as Atleti clearly ruffled the Gunners’ feathers in the first half with their pressing. They caught them on the ball a handful of times and could have made more of those openings.
Perhaps Simeone figured his best route to victory was to keep up that energy and disruption, and to do that, he needed an entirely new, fresh front line? That’s not to say I enjoyed watching Almada toil away on the left flank, but there must have been some logic to Simeone’s moves.
Marsden: I actually find the Atlético-Simeone question quite difficult. There have been bigger “minnow” stories than a club like them winning the Champions League, but it does feel like they have hit a ceiling in this competition. When will they next get such a good chance to reach the final? They have spent big money in recent years on transfer fees, but still pay far less in wages than Europe’s other clubs. That translates to the depth of their quality.
Atlético have a deep squad in some ways, but not deep enough for this level. For that reason, Simeone’s changes — and he may have been forced into some of them — felt too prompt and, even at the time, not the right ones to influence the game. It’s easy to say now, perhaps, but can we expect Sørloth, Baena and Johnny Cardoso and to win a tie of this magnitude?
That said, my biggest problem with Atlético and Simeone right now is not related to the Arsenal game. It’s that they lost the Copa del Rey final to Real Sociedad and may end up fourth in a league where they are supposed to be one of the three teams fighting for the title. After putting so much stock into the Champions League, I’d like to have seen them go out taking a few more risks at the end.
We know full well that these defenders and midfielders can move the ball around in style, but when it really came down to it, they glued together, disrupted every cross and blocked almost every shot.
Bayern spent all night trying to work room for a strike from just outside the box. It’s pretty much all Olise and Díaz did, as Jamal Musiala and Kane recycled the ball left to right 20 yards out. But very rarely did they manage to set themselves and shoot — and when they did, it was usually blocked before it even reached PSG keeper Matvei Safonov.