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Mikel Arteta must find the balance between newfound freedom and tried-and-tested solidity against Luis Enrique’s attacking machineWelcome to Budapest: city of stew, city of pavement squares, city of men in cotton smocks offering brisk muscular relaxation in geothermally heated cubicles. Eleven days on from the profound emotional release of winning the Premier League title it seems fitting Arsenal will approach their season’s endgame in a city that is basically perfect for a restorative summer city break.Saturday afternoon at the Puskas Arena already looks like a twin-track event for Mikel Arteta’s team, an occasion that changes shape according to the angle from which you see it. On one hand, victory against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final would represent the greatest day in Arsenal’s history. On the other, this is an occasion that feels strangely light, fun, celebratory, a free-hit kind of final.And this really is something new for a team whose entire public identity in the age of Arteta has been defined by the curation of anxiety, every step or stumble pitched as a referendum on the validity of the project, on the basic character of the knitwear-clad avatar of pain striding along at the front of the parade.When was the last time this team were able to approach a day like this without some deep clog of existential dread? How will a non‑tortured, fully validated, daddy-does-actually-love-us Arsenal carry themselves? What does this team playing without fear even look like?Even the well-meaning performative attempts to enjoy the title run-in felt painfully stiff and processed. Get on the fun boat. Bring the fire. Join us as we micromanage to the last detail the liberating of our own emotions. Suddenly Darth Vader is doing stand-up. Spock wants to disco dance. Mr Pincus, can you hear me Mr Pincus?And now we have this, a chance to breathe, to take the air by the Danube, and to luxuriate in a slight but significant shift in the tone and texture of this Arsenal era.Perhaps the travelling fans can simply enjoy looking around for omens. English teams have played four Champions League ties at the renovated Puskas Arena, winning four and not conceding a goal, although admittedly none of their opponents could field a furiously irresistible Georgian goal-werewolf.Coldplay and Ed Sheeran, also English, have played sold‑out mega-shows there. As have Depeche Mode, who have a French name but are in fact from Essex. So unlucky there, Paris. Even the Ballon d’Or ceremony has been moved to London, which would certainly be handy for dual Euro and World Cup king Martín Zubimendi/Declan Rice.In the real world PSG will be favourites to win, and with good reason. They’ve done it before. They have a clear advantage in attacking personnel, a team that approach these occasions armed to the teeth, a bayonet in each sleeve, a back-up Kalashnikov in their waistband.But there are new variables now, fresh unknowns. Two key things have changed. The most important is Arteta himself, both in his professional status and his relationship with the club.A few weeks ago some more deranged elements of the wider online fanbase were calling for him to be sacked. The scepticism wasn’t confined to the hysterical fringe. There have always been doubts, and a surprisingly heartfelt wider desire for Arteta to fail, to be exposed as a helmet-haired fraud, an empty pair of grey slacks; annoyance at the capering presence at the edge of the picture, the paperclip-salesman sloganeering, the sense of being lectured by a male wellness tycoon. As recently as this season’s semi-finals the French press was making sly references to Arteta’s “overly emotional register”.Well, not any more. Football is an outcome-based industry. Elite clubs crave success. Elite players respond to it. And Arteta is now unarguably an elite coach. Even getting to a Champions League final is an act of levelling up. It makes you a Max Allegri, a Mauricio Pochettino. Winning it would be something else altogether, a fresh name on a list that over the past 12 years reads Carlo Ancelotti, Zinedine Zidane (three times each), Luis Enrique (twice), Jürgen Klopp, Hansi Flick, Thomas Tuchel and Pep Guardiola; basically the capi dei capi, the guys who get to do the jobs.Arsenal’s executive has never publicly wavered on Arteta. But that gravity has shifted. The club now has an asset to placate, to hang on to, the star of his own title-winning project, and a manager who will be of interest to Spain’s big two, to PSG themselves, to the Football Association in due course.Another interesting note of trivia: Arteta would be the first English coach to win the European Cup since Joe Fagan in 1984. Well, he does at least have a British passport and live in London. And he is also the best qualified British candidate to manage the England team. Maybe this is his destiny. Maybe the set pieces, the big lads at the back, all make sense in this light. Maybe the game isn’t actually gone, but back.Perhaps not. But that moment of status-uplift is hugely significant. Arteta has a Scottish Premiership title as a player at Rangers and FA Cups as captain and coach of Arsenal. But winning the Premier League is by some distance the most significant moment of his 27-year professional life.This is a football personage who has made an elite-level career out of almost but not quite reaching the summit. As a kid he made it to La Masia, but not through La Masia, blocked by an extreme wealth of talent, including, among others, Luis Enrique. He went to PSG for almost 18 months, but in a period when this meant winning the Intertoto Cup. He went to post‑peak-Wenger Arsenal, the years of shrinkage and falling away.Perhaps he could find elite validation with a steamrollering Spain? But steamrollering Spain already had Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Xabi Alonso, Cesc Fàbregas, Sergio Busquets, David Silva and Santi Cazorla, and Arteta never won a cap. Hang on, maybe he can play for England! Except, no, Fifa says he can’t.Arteta’s coaching career also kicked off with a spell of standing near someone else while they won things, before three successive second places at Arsenal. He may project certainty, process chat, trusting the methods. But Arteta is also human. He has spoken of doubts, of a feeling that maybe it’s just not me. Except, it is him. Arteta is the captain now. Will he look, speak, walk differently?Ideally not. There is a theory out there Arsenal will experience The Freeing Up. The ankle weights are off. The handbrake will not just be released via the annoying electric button, but jimmied out with a screwdriver and thrown through the side window.Is this a good idea? Does it make sense for Arsenal to abandon the disciplines that took them to this place, just as they come up against Europe’s most unforgiving attack? Live by the rigidly disciplined tactical straitjacket, die by the rigidly disciplined tactical straitjacket. You’re not going to outdance Michael Jackson. But you may beat him at a really long and painful game of Scrabble.Arsenal are not the defensive nihilists they have often been cast as. Much of the season has been spent managing the absence of their most creative players, with a centre-forward who runs about as if he’s being chased by a sheepdog. PSG are also less freewheeling than they have been painted. Both of these teams start from a position of achieving control. They rank one and two for fewest shots conceded in Europe’s top five leagues. PSG have four attacking players of genuine high quality, but their effectiveness is built on a structure that allows them to run forwards and seek out duels. This is not a free-flowing, off-the-cuff team. It is attacking super-strengths implanted into a system.It seems likely the outcome will rest on how Arsenal defend and counterattack in wide areas. There is a precedent here. It is easy to forget that for 26 minutes in Paris last May, Arsenal dominated these same opponents, and in an interesting way.Luis Enrique’s team pinned Arsenal’s full‑backs in their own half in the first leg of that tie. At the Parc des Princes Myles Lewis-Skelly and Jurriën Timber came inside fearlessly, flooded the midfield and enabled a hugely aggressive pressing structure. Arsenal couldn’t finish the chances they made. Fabián Ruiz scored a brilliant goal to kill the tie. But the plan worked while it worked.Logic still suggests PSG have too much attacking power. But if Arsenal can keep it goalless for an hour the game may just start to lean towards this new-look champion team, out there just living for the moment (context: probably not just living for the moment). It will as ever come down to details. And maybe, just maybe, to that absence of fear.

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Gunners face PSG in Budapest final on Saturday‘We have one, and now we want the second one’Mikel Arteta has dismissed suggestions the pressure is off Arsenal in Saturday’s Champions League final after their first Premier League title for 22 years and insists he and his players are hungry for more trophies.Paris Saint-Germain, who defeated Arsenal in the semi-finals last year before being crowned European champions for the first time, saw off Chelsea, Liverpool and Bayern Munich in the knockout stages and are strongly fancied to retain their crown. Jurriën Timber looks likely to start after Arteta confirmed the Netherlands defender had recovered from a groin injury, although he has not featured since the win over Everton on 14 March.Arsenal have yet to win the Champions League and reached the final on one previous occasion, in 2006, when they were defeated by Barcelona. Arteta is determined Arsenal seize their opportunity on the biggest stage in club football after finally ending their long wait for the league title.“The ambition is bigger,” the manager said. “We have one, and now we want the second one. That’s all we’ve been talking about. There has to be a platform to reach bigger destinations and to aim for more. And the team is capable, because we’ve shown it in the last two seasons, in this competition. What we’ve done this season in the competition, and I want the players to be so confident that we’re going to win.”Arteta, asked whether he had noticed something different when he looks in the eyes of his players, said: “That they want more. Going through those moments brings you a different kind of desire. Because you lift it, you know exactly how it feels. You want to reproduce that feeling as many times as possible.“We have the opportunity to write a new chapter in the history of this football club. And in order to do that, we have to play with such clarity, a lot of courage, and a relentless desire to win. We have those three aspects, and I’m sure we’re going to be close to winning.”Bukayo Saka, who scored Arsenal’s goal in last season’s 3-1 aggregate defeat by PSG, revealed that Thierry Henry – part of the team that lost to Barcelona 20 years ago – had been in touch this week to offer encouragement. The England forward said it would round off a perfect season if they can beat PSG and that winning the Premier League after finishing second three years in a row had given the players plenty of confidence.“We all know where my journey started as a seven- or eight-year-old at Hale End – it was a long, long way away from trying to win the Champions League with Arsenal,” he said. “It feels like this last week it’s all become a reality and tomorrow is another exciting opportunity to create more history and win another for the club that I love. That goes a long way and it helped us win the title and hopefully it will give us an advantage on the pitch here.”Saturday’s game will be Arsenal’s 63rd of the season, more than any other team from the top five European leagues. It will be PSG’s 56th but Saka insisted fatigue would not play a part.“We’ve had a week to recover and we’re ready to go again and a game like this is not going to be decided on minutes,” he said. “It will be decided on moments and which team can produce a bit of quality and be well organised.”

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Luis Enrique: ‘Retaining it is source of inspiration for us’Expects to name same outfield 10 as in 2025 finalLuis Enrique has insisted Paris Saint-Germain’s motivation to retain their Champions League title is greater than Arsenal’s quest to be crowned European champions for the first time.PSG demolished Inter 5-0 in last year’s final in Munich and are strong favourites for Saturday’s showdown at the Puskas Arena in Budapest. Arsenal have reached this stage for the first time since 2006, when they lost 2-1 to Barcelona in Paris, and Arteta caused a stir in the week when he said: “We will be European champions on Saturday.”Luis Enrique refused to say if that declaration has provided his players with extra motivation but did say that the chance to become only the second team in the Champions League era to retain their title, after Real Madrid, and ninth in total is driving his players. “Yes, it is powerful,” said the Spaniard of Arsenal’s desire to win a first title. “But do you know how powerful trying to win the second one in a row is? It’s bigger. So we’re ahead. I don’t think there’s any better motivation than winning the Champions League. We will see tomorrow who is better – we both won our respective leagues and I’m going to focus on what is positive for my team. So that we can show the best of ourselves.“It’s a source of motivation for us. We have already gone down in the history books as one of the best teams in Europe. But that’s what we’re looking for. You never know when you’re going to be back in the Champions League final and you have to make the most of it.”Ousmane Dembélé and Achraf Hakimi have been included in PSG’s squad for the final after recovering from injury, with Luis Enrique – who has won 11 of the 12 finals he has contested as a manager – expected to select 10 of the team that started in Munich 12 months ago. Dembélé’s participation was in doubt due to a calf injury but the France forward said he was never worried about missing the final and warned that PSG are itching to finish the job.“We’re a young squad who are highly ambitious and we don’t want to sit on our laurels,” he said. “We know that it would be something historic if we can pull it off. If we want to be great players then these are the trophies that we need to be winning time and again.”

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In the streets where he grew up the PSG winger’s success is an inspiration and a continual source of prideThe cage where Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s love for football began is still buzzing with life today. Sandwiched between the vast Soviet apartment blocks of Dighmis Masivi, children scream, “Kvaraaaa!” as they strike the ball, replica shirts bearing his name stretched proudly across their backs.This same “stadium”, as locals call it, fills each evening – like many across Tbilisi – with children playing football for hours, stopping only when mothers lean from balconies and shout that dinner is ready.There is a buzz about the neighbourhood, as they wait to watch their native son try to win a second straight Champions League when he plays for Paris Saint-Germain against Arsenal in Budapest on Saturday. There is also a buzz about how far his stardom can reach and whether it is possible he could take home the Ballon d’Or in October.Among those who once played here with Kvaratskhelia was Giorgi Bliadze, a childhood friend and former classmate. “It would be a dream come true as much for me as it would for him,” he says. “It would mean seeing the same dream we spoke about as kids become reality … proof that dedication and childhood ambition can turn into history.”For Bliadze, the possibility of Kvaratskhelia winning the Ballon d’Or is about more than individual success. “It would also be a huge moment of pride for our whole neighbourhood,” he says. “Ever since seeing him in those cages, everyone knew he was going to become something special. The whole community has been waiting for his success.”It is not only those personally close to Kvaratskhelia who want him to take home the Ballon d’Or. Tengiz, who has lived in the area for decades, says: “Out of millions of people, it’s fate that our neighbour is better than them all.”Tengiz talks about the history of Georgia, how back in the days of the Soviet Union, Dinamo Tbilisi won the 1981 Cup Winners’ Cup. “Back then it took a whole team to put Georgia on the map,” he says. “Now just one man can do it. It is unbelievable.”To understand Georgia’s eagerness for Kvaratskhelia to lift the Ballon d’Or, you have to understand the country. In a state with a population of 3.9 million and which, in its modern form, is younger than Cristiano Ronaldo, Kvaratskhelia’s rise extends far beyond football.In many ways, Georgians speak about him less as a footballer and more as a representative of the country; a figure whose global success reflects on the nation, much like Luka Modric’s symbolic importance in Croatia or Mohamed Salah’s in Egypt.“He is the revolutionary of Georgian football,” says Tsotne Kinkladze, who played with Kvaratskhelia in the Dinamo academy and is a football pundit for Georgia’s national broadcaster. “Imagine how much his success has already changed the country. Now imagine what would happen if he became the best player in the world. That is the level of impact and achievement he has brought to Georgia. Neither the country nor Georgian football will ever truly be able to repay what he has done for us.”Saba Sapanadze, one of the country’s leading sports journalists, agrees. “For Georgia, this would be … I don’t even know. Even imagining it gives me goosebumps. At just 25 years old, he is already our greatest player of all time and if he could win the Ballon d’Or, it would cement his legend for ever.”Kinkladze remembers how distant this level of success once felt. “During our childhood, it was impossible to imagine that a Georgian footballer could ever reach these heights,” he says. “At the time, most Georgian players were limited to post-Soviet leagues. In Europe’s top five leagues, there was basically only Levan Mchedlidze [a forward who spent over a decade at Empoli].”Giorgi Sirbiladze, also from Kvaratskhelia’s old neighbourhood, is part of Dinamo’s academy now. “If he wins the final and plays how he should play, he has to win it,” he says of the Ballon d’Or. “I really look up to him. His success makes me dream too.” And with that Sirbiladze goes back to kicking his signed Kvaratskhelia ball around.Kvaratskhelia has been arguably the dominant force in this season’s Champions League, scoring 10 goals and setting up six in 15 games and becoming the first player to record a goal contribution in seven consecutive knockout matches. At home to Chelsea on game two of that run he scored twice and assisted another goal in a 5-2 win.Sapanadze has been the driving force behind the campaign for the ‘Kvara d’Or’, as he calls it. “After that dominant performance against Chelsea, I started saying it. I started believing he would become a leading candidate for the Ballon d’Or,” Sapanadze says. “Of course, then he went on to do the same to Liverpool and then Bayern [Munich] … his first goal against Bayern was out of this world, and he was the main difference in both games.”Back in Dighmis Masivi, the kids are still playing, rattling the ball against the cage. They dream of replicating the success of the man who was in their same position 15 years ago. Kvaratskhelia was then under the guidance of Manana Merabishvili, the head of his class in school.“Let’s not only speak of Khvicha as a player, but as a person,” Merabishvili says. “Since childhood, he was humble and talented … he used to show up the day before and pass all the exams.“A large amount of it was genetic, as his father was also a footballer and his younger brother is now playing for Dinamo. However, of course I believe I played some part. In the younger ages when he would become lazy I would give him a little slap around the head to keep him focused.”A lot of factors are in play regarding whether Kvaratskhelia will win the Ballon d’Or; it is a World Cup year after all and Georgia failed to qualify. But if PSG win the final and he produces another stellar performance, he would have to be in with a shout.Before Kvaratskhelia, kids playing in Dighmis Masivi would have associated the Ballon d’Or with distant footballing superpowers. Now, the idea of a Georgian winner feels imaginable in neighbourhoods such as this, all over Tbilisi.

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Luis Enrique rotated his squad in Ligue 1, whereas Mikel Arteta relied on his best XI in three domestic competitionsA look at the most basic numbers might have you believe that the Champions League finalists have had equally demanding campaigns. The final in Budapest on Saturday will be the 63rd game of the season for Arsenal and the 56th for Paris Saint-Germain. However, the French side also played seven matches at last summer’s Club World Cup, which means both teams have played 62 matches since the start of last June.Delve a little deeper, though, and there is more to those figures than meets the eye. While Arsenal were able to rest properly last summer, PSG were in the US, reaching the final of a competition played in sweltering heat, which started only 14 days after they had beaten Inter in the Champions League final.They had barely any time off to rest after it, either, because their season started exactly one month after the Club World Cup had ended, with the Super Cup against Tottenham. And their defence of the Ligue 1 title began just a few days later. The newly expanded Club World Cup set up the teams involved for a difficult season, where their players were forced to play catchup on their rivals when it came to rest and recuperation.There is no way of quantifying how much Chelsea’s players were affected by their run to the final, but it is no coincidence that they only won two of their first six league games of the season and went on to finish way down in 10th. Cole Palmer, for one, had such a disappointing campaign that he will not even be at this summer’s World Cup as a result.But, since the new season started, there is no comparison between the demands on PSG’s players and those on Arsenal’s. From the beginning of the 2025-26 campaign, Arsenal have played more matches than any other team in any of the top five European leagues, having gone deep in the League Cup and the FA Cup. And, crucially, their opportunities to rotate have, unlike PSG, been few and far between.For example, when PSG’s domestic season started against Nantes, their team contained just two of the players who had started the Champions League final a couple of months before. Nuno Mendes, Achraf Hakimi, Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia came off the bench to force a 1-0 win, but that level of reinforcement has not been necessary every week. Far from it, in fact.Luis Enrique has regularly rested his players from Ligue 1 games. So, even though PSG have played a lot of matches, their most important players have been rotated heavily and should go into this weekend’s final relatively fresh.Many of PSG’s best players have played very little domestic football this season. Ballon d’Or winner Dembélé started just 11 of their 34 Ligue 1 games; Neves, Mendes and Fabián Ruiz made 13 starts each; Kvaratskhelia 18, Doué and Hakimi 16, and Marquinhos 11. And it’s not like they come off the bench all that much, either. Not one of them has played even half their team’s minutes in Ligue 1 this season.Many of them have been saved for the Champions League, where Luis Enrique clearly feels they are needed more. Mendes and Marquinhos have played more minutes in the Champions League this season than in Ligue 1, despite PSG playing 18 fewer matches in that competition.PSG have had a few injury problems, but players have missed most matches due to rotation. For example, Kvaratskhelia has missed just three league games due to injury, Marquinhos two, Mendes eight, Neves nine and Dembélé 10. They have just been given time off at every opportunity.And the bulk of their squad is made up of young or peak-age players, who should be able to contend with a packed schedule. Resting Marquinhos regularly might be necessary but many of them have simply been kept fresh for this crucial part of the season.PSG’s superiority in Ligue 1 has allowed Luis Enrique to manage injuries and prevent fatigue by carefully curating his players’ workloads, simply through rest whenever they’ve needed it. PSG won Ligue 1 for a fifth season in a row this year. Everyone knows how hard Arsenal had to work to win the Premier League title.Some of that is due to the trauma of their past failures. Three successive second-place finishes meant Arsenal were desperate to win it this time around and were terrified of throwing their lead away to Manchester City again, and they made hard work of getting the points they needed as they stumbled over the finishing line. Beating relegated Burnley 1-0 at home in their penultimate game was made to look like a mountainous task, for example.But they also struggled in the final straight at least in part because of how strenuous the season was, and also because, whether rightly or wrongly, Mikel Arteta chose not to rotate as much.Despite spending big last summer and boosting the depth of his squad, there were certain players he simply would not rotate. David Raya played every minute in the Premier League this season until the title was won – so he missed the final game – and he has started 13 of 14 their Champions League games.Declan Rice and Martín Zubimendi were as good as undroppable in central midfield, with Rice missing just two Premier League games and Zubimendi none. At centre-back, Gabriel Magalhães and William Saliba only missed out on the few occasions they were unavailable. All five of those Arsenal players started at least 30 Premier League games this season, whereas no PSG player started more than 27 in Ligue 1.In all competitions, meanwhile, that group of Arsenal players have all played more than 4,000 minutes of football this season. The only PSG player to break the 4,000-minute mark is Warren Zaïre-Emery.Across both squads, 12 players have played at least 3,000 minutes of competitive football this season, and nine of them play for Arsenal. If Jurriën Timber is passed fit, all of them could start on Saturday.Barring injury, getting through just one more match will not be beyond any of these super-fit players, but the demands of the season could have an impact on which team can last the distance and keep up the intensity their managers demand for the full 90 – or 120 – minutes. PSG could have a decisive advantage.

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Arsenal striker scored the winner in the final five years ago and is determined to make up for being ‘in a bad place’ when injured this seasonWhen Kai Havertz thinks back to the 2021 Champions League final, he can’t help smiling. Chelsea’s surprise victory over Manchester City in Porto still feels like yesterday for the Germany striker.“It is something I will never forget,” he says. “As a kid I could have never dreamed I would score a goal in the final and win that game. I will always be proud of it. I just try to take that feeling and hopefully it will happen again.”Havertz is looking ahead to Arsenal’s final against Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest on Saturday, when not many give them a chance of winning. It was the same when Chelsea, managed by Thomas Tuchel, took on a formidable City assembled by Pep Guardiola that had won the Premier League by 12 points. Chelsea had finished fourth, a further seven points adrift.“We were the underdogs on that day, for sure,” Havertz says. “We hadn’t had the best season. But now it is completely different.”Arsenal arrive having won their first Premier League since 2004 and Havertz, who as part of the celebrations posted a selfie with Win, the brown labrador who resides at the training ground, is in line to start. He has been preferred to the £64m summer signing Viktor Gyökeres in recent games against City and Burnley and is relishing the prospect of playing in European club football’s showpiece match for the second time.“There is just so much history with it,” he says. “So many big players played in it, and to be there, to compete to win the trophy, is amazing. I remember as a child I watched all the games – and just to watch that final is something very special. So to play in it is unreal.“You need to get there, and then you still have to make that step and win it. It is going to be hard, but we are going to be well prepared.”Many observers were surprised when Arsenal paid £65m to sign Havertz from Chelsea two years after his Champions League final heroics. But he finished as top scorer last season despite missing its last three months with a hamstring injury and hopes to repay Mikel Arteta’s faith on the biggest stage.“He was the one who brought me to the club and he taught me so much stuff on the pitch – and off the pitch as well,” he says. “I am very thankful for that time, how he helped me a lot when I had difficult moments. That is also very important.“It is nice that we also got him a little gift [the Premier League title] back now. He brought the club back to where it belongs.”Havertz missed almost five months after sustaining a knee injury on this season’s opening day against Manchester United, returning in January. The 26-year‑old was initially expected to be out for weeks, but ended up having two surgeries and spent weeks in a knee brace.“I was in a bad place when I was injured. You are just inside a building. You cannot go out, you cannot walk, you do nothing. But all the players and staff helped me believe in myself and to get back to my best.“Everyone told me from January how there is so much to play. That is where my momentum also shifted and I am just happy that I am here again now. I try to help the team every day. I tried that also when I was injured, just to help them off the pitch. That is always important.”Havertz’s goals at Bayer Leverkusen, his former club, in the Champions League’s last 16 and at Sporting in the quarter-final were crucial, as was his first Premier League goal at the Emirates for more than a year in the win against Burnley that teed up the following night’s title win. He also scored in April’s defeat at the Etihad Stadium.Havertz singled out Arsenal’s Carabao Cup final loss to City rather than that subsequent defeat as the turning point in their season. “It was a moment where we felt we could do so much better and there was so much more in this team and everyone needed to lift their spirits,” he said.“There was the international break after and we just said to ourselves that we need to come back stronger. From that moment things changed a bit and we were more successful. That was a big moment. You are always frustrated when you lose finals, so to come back from it and win the league like this is great.”It ensures confidence is high before facing PSG. Havertz says: “We have been fighting on the highest level for a couple of years now and we have finally won the Premier League. That gives us a big boost. It doesn’t matter if you are an underdog or whatever. We are going to go on the pitch and are going to beat them.”