The preamble to last season’s Champions League Final will always be fondly remembered by Mauricio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp.
It was an exhilarating three-week spell of laser-sharp focus, as Tottenham and Liverpool prepared for the game of their lives.
However, the match was an anticlimax; a tense affair settled after 21 seconds with Moussa Sissoko’s handball. That penalty killed the atmosphere inside the Wanda Metropolitano, killed Spurs and even killed Liverpool, who prioritised protecting their lead.
Both sides also looked undercooked but the same problem is unlikely to hamper Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, which is one reason why Sunday’s contest could be a classic.
PSG’s semi-final win over RB Leipzig on Tuesday was followed by Bayern’s victory against Lyon 24 hours later, and an entertaining final would increase calls for Uefa to stick with the mini-tournament format, which should ensure both sides need no time to get going at the Estadio da Luz.
The Ligue 1 side begin as underdogs but PSG’s biggest strength is primed to exploit Bayern’s only conceivable weakness and Thomas Tuchel’s side can actually take encouragement from their opponents’ remarkable form in Lisbon.
Bayern sent a great institution into meltdown with an 8-2 rout of Barcelona in the quarter-final, but they might easily have fallen behind early on as the Catalans’ pace troubled an aggressively front-foot defence.
Even Lyon, who paid for their missed chances in a 3-0 semi-final defeat, showed how to get at the Germans.
No player in the world has more devastating pace than Kylian Mbappe and the prospect of Angel Di Maria threading passes through Bayern’s high-line to the Frenchman and Neymar should excite the PSG fans.
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Bayern, of course, also demonstrated their irresistible firepower against Barcelona and Lyon, and boast the leading scorer in this season’s competition in Robert Lewandowski (15) while former Arsenal winger Serge Gnabry is third on the list with nine. In 10 Champions League fixtures this season, the Bundesliga champions have scored 42 times.
Hansi Flick’s side, though, are about so much more than their attack and feel like the most complete team in Europe, not least because they go into the game on the longest unbeaten run on the continent, with 28 wins and 97 goals from their past 29 matches.
For PSG, led by German Tuchel, a first Champions League Final is a chance to emphatically shed their reputation as bottlers. Conquering Europe would finally fulfil the primary objective of the club’s Qatari owners but the presence of a state-owned, sportswashing project in the biggest match in domestic football cannot be ignored and poses uncomfortable questions for everyone invested in the sport.
Bayern have a rich European pedigree and are looking for their sixth European Cup win, to take them level with Liverpool, in their 11th final.
The past six teams to compete in their first final have all lost, including Spurs, but Sunday at least seems unlikely to be another damp squib.