Stats and facts
Sat | 22/08/20 | 22:24
9 facts on the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain
Curtain up on what is the biggest game in European club football: On Sunday evening, FCB face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final and fight for the much sought-after trophy. Here are nine interesting facts and figures to help you get set for the final.
1. Dreaming of another treble
By winning the Champions League final against PSG, FC Bayern could repeat the treble of 2013, thus far the greatest success in the club's history. In addition to Bayern, the illustrious group of treble winners includes Celtic (1967), Ajax (1972), PSV Eindhoven (1988), Manchester United (1999), Inter Milan (2010) and Barcelona (2009, 2015), the latter of whom are the only club to have twice won the league, the national cup and Champions League in a single season.
In 2013, FC Bayern last won the Champions League and completed the treble for the first time that season.
2. Bayern aim to catch up with Liverpool
FC Bayern have reached the final of the Champions League or European Cup for the eleventh time - only Real Madrid (16 times, AC Milan also 11 times) can better that. Five times the team from Munich have lifted the trophy and could now draw level with Liverpool (six titles) as the third most successful team in the competition, if they win on Sunday. The only teams ahead of that are Real Madrid (13) and AC (seven).
3. FCB set to break next record
Hansi Flick's team have won all ten matches of the current Champions League campaign, close to breaking yet another record. If Bayern win against PSG in the final, they would then set the longest winning run in the history of the competition with eleven wins in a row: Previously, only Bayern themselves (from April to November 2013) and Real Madrid (from April 2014 to February 2015) had won ten times in a row. Moreover, the Munich team would be the first team since Manchester United in 2008/09 to win the Champions League without defeat.
4. New boys Paris with a poor record
After two appearances in the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup (1996, a 1-0 win against Rapid Vienna and 1997, a 1-0 loss to Barcelona), the club from the French capital are in the final of the Champions League or the European Cup for the first time and are the 41st club in the history of the competition to have made it this far in the competition. The last six final debutants before Paris all lost their debuts in the final - the last time a team was successful at the first time of asking was Borussia Dortmund in the 1997 final against Juventus (winning 3-1).
5. Flick in the footsteps of Guardiola and Zidane
Flick won his first DFB Cup final as coach at the beginning of July with a 4-2 win over Bayer 04 Leverkusen - and now, his debut Champions League final as coach follows.
FCB coach Hansi Flick has already experienced the feeling of being in the final of Europe's elite club competition as a player: in 1987, he lost 2-1 to Porto as a Bayern player. Now he has joined Miguel Muñoz (Real Madrid), Vicente del Bosque (Real Madrid), Carlo Ancelotti (Milan), Pep Guardiola (FC Barcelona) and Zinédine Zidane (Real Madrid) as the only coaches to have reached the final of the competition as both a player and a coach for the same club.
6. No end to Bayern's goalscoring
The team from Munich have scored goals for fun in the UCL this season. FCB have netted 42 goals after ten games, an average of 4.2 per game - the highest average number of goals per game ever in the Champions League! The only time this season that Bayern have failed to score three or more goals was in the 2-0 defeat of Olympiakos in the group. They are in touching distance of the total goalscoring record; Barcelona hold this, having scored 45 goals in 1999/2000, albeit playing 5 games more.
7. The perfect time for number 500
The Bavarians currently stand on 499 goals scored in the UEFA Champions League. Their next goal therefore would be a big milestone - and what better time to celebrate it than in Sunday's final. Only Real Madrid (567) and Barcelona (517) have scored more goals in European Cup/Champions League.
8. Lewandowski's personal treble
Robert Lewandowski has scored in all nine of his Champions League appearances in 2019/20 - in the UCL, only Cristiano Ronaldo has had a longer run of scoring (eleven games in a row from June 2017 to April 2018). With an incredible 15 goals this season, the Pole can now dream of breaking Ronaldo's record of 17 goals from the 2013/14 season. The exceptional 32-year-old striker has a six-goal lead over the best remaining marksman in the competition, Serge Gnaby (9), a feat that is nigh on incomprehensible, and means he has the personal top scorer treble pretty much sealed, after finishing as the Bundesliga's top goalscorer and topping this season's DFB Cup scoring charts.
9. Advantage Paris in direct head-to-heads
The final in Lisbon will be the ninth meeting between Paris Saint-Germain and FC Bayern. The previous encounters thus far have all taken place in the Champions League group stage: PSG have won five games, and Bayern three - including their last match in December 2017, when they prevailed 3-1 at the Allianz Arena.
More information about Paris Saint-Germain in our opponent profile:
Topics of this article