Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final in Budapest pairs Paris Saint-Germain with Arsenal, two high-quality sides that arrive with contrasting profiles. PSG averaged 64.6% possession per game in Ligue 1 this season, while Arsenal conceded fewer goals (27) and scored more from set pieces (25) in the Premier League than any other team in Europe’s top-five leagues, the article noted.
A notable tactical quirk is PSG’s repeated habit of kicking the ball straight out of play from kickoff. Set-piece analyst Stuart Reid said the aim is to “box the opposition in,” push up the pitch immediately and try to win the resulting throw-in so the team can establish possession in the opposition third quickly. In the club’s last two Ligue 1 matches of the season, PSG regained possession within 30 seconds of kickoff.
Data in the report underlines the routine nature of the tactic: PSG booted the ball out of play 28 times in Ligue 1 and 15 times in the Champions League this season, yet did not register a shot within the first 60 seconds on any of those occasions. Rather than using the long kick as a launch for an immediate attempt, PSG generally recycle the ball back toward the defensive line and then build possession.
Reid added that the approach also addresses a vulnerability seen at kickoffs, when large gaps can open between players. The article cites two Premier League examples of goals scored immediately after kickoffs — Erling Haaland for Manchester City against Everton, and Wilson Isidor for Sunderland versus Aston Villa — as evidence of that risk. Sending the ball out of play, PSG hope, forces opponents into a compressed shape and removes those early-space opportunities.
The pattern extended to PSG’s Champions League semi-final goal-kick tactics, where Matvei Safonov repeatedly sent the ball out past the halfway line. What looked initially like errant distribution was identified as deliberate. Reid described a psychological element: pen the opposition in, force them onto the back foot and set up a press in a chosen area. In one instance, Safonov targeted Bayern winger Michael Olise’s side to limit his space and influence.
