4 questions that will decide who wins Champions League final

The matchup is set for this season's Champions League final, with Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain set to meet at the Allianz Arena. Much can change between now and the kickoff May 31, but it's never too early to get excited about the biggest game on the European club calendar. Here are four questions that'll determine who wins the famous big-eared trophy.

Will banged-up Inter survive final stretch?

Lautaro Martinez had less than a week to recover from a hamstring injury and "sat at home crying" over the prospect of missing Tuesday's pivotal Champions League semifinal second leg. Somehow, he made it back, scoring the first goal of Inter's whirlwind 4-3 win over Barcelona that sent them to the final.

He's hardly the only Inter player on the mend. Marcus Thuram is still struggling with a thigh injury that hasn't fully healed and clearly hindered his movement halfway through Tuesday's game. Denzel Dumfries returned last week and had a hand in five of the seven goals Inter scored against Barcelona. Piotr Zielinski, one of Inter's heroic substitutes, only recently recovered from a calf injury, and Benjamin Pavard, who missed the game entirely with an ankle issue, was in civvies as he celebrated Inter's passage to the final.

This team is banged and bruised and tired. Inter are 55 games deep already and will end up playing at least 62 matches through the FIFA Club World Cup. That's the toll they're paying for going far in every competition available to them. Even players who've remained relatively healthy this season - including standout defender Alessandro Bastoni, who leads the team with 50 appearances - are certain to feel fatigue as Inter chase a Serie A and Champions League double.

Head coach Simone Inzaghi has done his best to rotate his squad, but he can't afford a drop-off in quality in any of Inter's remaining games. They're trailing Napoli by three points with just three matches to go in the Serie A season and are away for two of them. Inzaghi will have to find a way to keep his starters fresh over the next three weeks, or face the prospect of finishing such a promising season without any silverware.

Will Donnarumma play the hero again?

Paris Saint-Germain may have folded if Gianluigi Donnarumma hadn't produced two early saves in Wednesday's second leg at the Parc des Princes. Few goalkeepers even have the reach to attempt the strong-arm save that stopped Martin Odegaard's eighth-minute thunderbolt of a shot. But Donnarumma has made a career of such physically improbable last-ditch efforts. It's his thing.

If Arsenal had gained a 1-0 lead within the first 15 minutes of the game, as PSG did at Emirates Stadium, the tie could've exploded into the kind of heavyweight exchange that brought Inter and Barcelona to their knees. When Bukayo Saka unfurled a curling left-footed shot toward the top left corner, Donnarumma was again there to preserve PSG's aggregate lead. Saka could only shake his head. He was beaten.

Donnarumma denied Arsenal eight times across two legs and conceded only once. That's some achievement given Thibaut Courtois, who leads all Champions League goalkeepers this season with 51 saves in 12 matches, couldn't stop the Gunners from scoring five goals against him.

Arsenal may have been missing a true center-forward, neither Leandro Trossard nor midfielder Mikel Merino could muster much of a threat in the absence of Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus, but they still created more genuine chances than PSG. Arsenal were expected to score 4.79 goals to PSG's 2.95, according to stats provider Opta Analyst. Donnarumma simply kept most of them out.

"The goalkeeper won the game for them in both ties," Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta told reporters.

Goalkeepers are increasingly the difference in cup competitions, where time is finite and game plans can go quickly out the window. His adversary in the Champions League final, Inter's Yann Sommer, delivered just as incredible of a performance against Barcelona on Tuesday. His fingertip saves on Lamine Yamal gave Inter a lifeline when they were under severe fire.

But Inter have something that PSG don't. Donnarumma's former goalkeeping coach, Gianluca Spinelli, works for the Nerazzurri and knows all of his former pupil's strengths and weaknesses. Donnarumma told Prime Italia that he still speaks with Spinelli every day. He has significant intel on PSG's Champions League hero and will likely help facilitate plans to expose Donnarumma's trouble collecting aerial balls and playing out from the back.

Who will dominate the flanks?

Control the midfield, control the match.

The familiar adage has persisted through tactical revolutions and innovations because it's true. The events that matter most in a match often take place in the center of the field. That'll also be true of the Champions League final, where two distinct but similarly cohesive midfield trios will try to dictate proceedings in Munich.

But it's out wide, where PSG's flying full-backs will match up against Inter's unwavering wing-backs, that could provide the most intriguing battle.

Both sets of players look to race forward at every opportunity, and their surging runs into the opposition half are critical elements of the attack for both finalists. Dumfries and Federico Dimarco, along with Carlos Augusto, who frequently replaces the latter after the hour mark of matches, are relied upon heavily by Inzaghi to exploit spaces that open up out wide after Inter have filtered the ball through the middle in their initial buildup phase. Dumfries scored twice and provided three assists in the spectacular semifinal win over Barcelona, including the pass that teed up their season-saving stoppage-time equalizer in the second leg. He was a force of nature against Barca.

On the other side, Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes fulfill an eerily similar role for Luis Enrique. It hasn't been uncommon to see them as the farthest players forward during any given attacking sequence, particularly if PSG win possession back and look to strike quickly. They're two of the fastest players in the world, regardless of position; only Erling Haaland has reached a higher top speed in the tournament this season than Hakimi, who was named Man of the Match for his tireless performance Wednesday.

Hakimi, who delivered the dagger against Arsenal with a sublime finish after floating into the center of the penalty area, leads PSG in assists in the Champions League this season, while Mendes' four goals are second on the team behind only Ousmane Dembele. Together, they have 13 goal contributions. Many forwards don't even put up numbers like this.

There is, of course, the added layer of Dumfries being the player who replaced Hakimi after Inter sold the Moroccan international to PSG in 2021. Who made out better in that transaction? The definitive answer might just arrive May 31.

Which team will manage the moment?

Once the opening whistle blows at the Allianz Arena, it is, technically, just another game. But, for better or worse, funny things can happen when the stakes are this high. Players can get tight, overthink, and let the occasion get the better of them, or they can use the added adrenaline to lift them, and their team, to another gear. The intangibles matter.

Properly managing the moment is half the battle. Just ask Barcelona.

The commitment to their philosophy and well-defined style of play - ultra-aggressive and on the front foot at all times, situation be damned - is why they were able to fight back from multiple two-goal deficits in the semifinal tie with Inter. And it's also what got them eliminated. Their unyielding approach and high defensive line left them inexplicably undermanned at the back when they should've been slightly more cautious while nursing a one-goal lead in the 93rd minute of the second leg. There was an air of naivete.

PSG, though similarly constructed with exuberant young players all over the pitch, have proven they can be more measured in their approach. Luis Enrique, a former Barca manager who abides by some of the same principles as Hansi Flick, knows that it's sometimes necessary to take your foot off the gas. He knows his team must "suffer" to finally win this title for the first time.

But Inter, loaded with veterans and returning nearly the entire starting lineup from their narrow loss to Manchester City in the 2023 Champions League final, are the grizzled grand masters of that approach. Even when they were being suffocated in their own half by Barcelona's pressing and possession game, they never panicked. They were under intense pressure, yes, but they were never out of control.

PSG, arguably the best team in Europe since the calendar flipped to 2025, are capable of tilting the field just like Barca, but they can get rattled when the opposition starts pushing back. Both Aston Villa and Arsenal had them on the ropes in the last two rounds, only for Donnarumma to bail them out when their defensive shape imploded and their poise disappeared.

When Inter inevitably hold their feet to the fire, can PSG keep their cool? That question will go a long way to determining who hoists the big-eared trophy.