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After an unprecedented suspension of the competition, COVID-19 pandemic-enforced changes to the format and a switch of location for the final, the Champions League will conclude in the early hours of Monday (in IST) - 425 days after the first game was played.
Either Paris Saint-Germain will pick up the European Cup for the first time or Bayern Munich will become six-time winner of the continent’s premier competition.
And just a few hundred people, including the coronavirus-checked players and officials, will be allowed to watch the final, which is being played in Lisbon in late August rather than Istanbul in May as originally scheduled, in the stadium.
Never before has the European Cup been handed out in such empty surroundings. There’s none of the usual gathering of tens of thousands of supporters in the host city. Only the large trophy in Rossio - Lisbon’s main central square - gives away that the biggest match in world football is taking place in the Portuguese capital.
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Around Benfica’s stadium, there is not a single sign indicating a game due to be watched on television by hundreds of millions of people on Sunday night will be played inside.
The lack of buzz and atmosphere at this 65th European Cup final will not detract from the magnitude of the occasion for the teams. For the first time since 1998, the final is a meeting between two teams who qualified as domestic champion.
HEAD-TO-HEAD (H2H)
Bayern Munich and PSG have met eight times previously, all in the UEFA Champions League group stages - PSG has won five of those matches, with Bayern winning the other three, including the most recent game in December 2017.
WATCH | Bayern Munich's road to the UEFA Champions League final
FORM GUIDE
PSG in last five matches (in all competitions): W-W-W-W-W
Bayern Munich in last five matches (in all competitions): W-W-W-W-W
WATCH | PSG's road to the UEFA Champions League final
STAT ATTACK
- This is PSG's first-ever European Cup/Champions League final, becoming the 41st team to reach the showpiece final. The last six teams competing in their first final have all lost, with the last first-time winner being Borussia Dortmund in 1997 against Juventus.
- Bayern Munich has reached its 11th European Cup/Champions League final, with only Real Madrid playing in more (16). It currently has five titles, the fourth-best behind Real Madrid (13), AC Milan (7) and Liverpool (6).
- PSG has ony reached its third major UEFA final, previously doing so in the 1995-96 and 1996-97 Cup Winners' Cup, winning the former 1-0 against SK Rapid Wien and losing the latter 1-0 against Barcelona.
- Bayern Munich has scored 42 goals on 10 games this season's UEFA Champions League, with only Barcelona in 1999/2000 scoring more in a single campaign (45), although it played 16 games that season.
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