Football Daily | All aboard to Budapest! PSG purr past Bayern to set up gunfight with Arsenal

The Guardian Sport4h ago9 min readOriginal source →

TL;DR

Paris Saint-Germain secured their spot in the Bigger Cup final after a draw against Bayern Munich, setting up a clash with Arsenal. Bayern expressed frustration over controversial refereeing decisions during the match.

Key points

PSG drew with Bayern Munich to reach the Bigger Cup final
Bayern Munich expressed frustration over refereeing decisions
Each club gets 16,824 tickets for the final in Budapest
Ticket prices range from €70 to nearly €1,000
The final will be held at the Puskas Arena

Mentioned in this story

BudapestPuskas Arena

Paris Saint-GermainBayern MunichArsenalBigger Cup

THE GRAND BUDAPEST CARTEL

The state-owned football team it’s OK to like (and proof that sportswashing works), Paris Saint-Germain booked their place in Bigger Cup final courtesy of a draw against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. Like Shaun Murphy in Monday’s night’s thrilling denouement of the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, the German champions didn’t do a great deal wrong and were similarly gracious in defeat despite their obvious disappointment. “The level of both teams was very, very high,” sighed Vincent Kompany as he ruminated on his team’s exit. “PSG have so much quality, they’ve probably been the best team in Europe in the last two years.” A team that is currently so good it was forced to replace deadweight no-marks such as Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi and Neymar to finally shed their tag as Bigger Cup nearlymen and bottlers, the willingness of their replacements to do the dirty work of defending played no small part in helping PSG get over the line.

For all their graciousness in defeat, Bayern’s departure from the tournament wasn’t entirely unclouded by rancour. It was understandable considering that ultimately, they were diddled by a PSG penalty in the first leg that should never have been awarded. On Wednesday Bayern felt further aggrieved by two more handball decisions that didn’t go their way, one of which turned out to be entirely correct and an initial one that still doesn’t look entirely incorrect after multiple viewings. “It’s astonishing, to say the least, that a referee with only 15 [Bigger Cup] appearances is allowed to take charge of such a match,” parped Bayern CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen of Portuguese referee João Pinheiro’s performance. “And that perhaps also explains some of the decisions.”

While Mikel Arteta, his coaching staff and Ben White will spend the next couple of weeks lying awake wondering how best to solve a problem like Khvicha Kvaratskhelia without creating 99 others elsewhere, no end of Arsenal and PSG fans will endure similarly sleepless nights stressing over how they will get tickets for the final in Budapest. With just 16,824 general admission tickets going to each club, almost exactly half of the 67,215 capacity of the Puskas Arena will be reserved for “friends” of the dysfunctional “Uefa family”. While 10,000 fans from each club will get tickets for a reasonably priced €70, the next cheapest are twice that amount while the most expensive Category A admission slips are just shy of a grand. With airlines and Budapest boarding houses also shamelessly muscling in on the gouging act, many Arsenal fans will consider the small fortune begged, borrowed or stolen a small price to pay for the privilege of watching Arteta’s Fun Boat™ drop anchor in the Danube.