Declan Rice says Arsenal are better for the pain of last season’s semi-final loss to Paris Saint-Germain, and he thinks that matters now that the two sides are back together in Budapest for the UEFA Champions League final.
The 27-year-old Arsenal midfielder called the final “what a chance, what an opportunity,” as the club prepares to chase the Champions League title for the first time. Rice has spent the run-up leaning on the feeling of winning with West Ham in the 2022/23 UEFA Conference League, when he captained the side to a trophy he said he would remember forever because it was West Ham’s first since Bobby Moore.
That experience is part of why Arsenal have leaned on him in the biggest moments. Mikel Arteta has described Rice as the team’s lighthouse, and the midfielder said the responsibility has pushed him into a more complete role, one that has made him stronger in every part of the game. He said Arsenal have stepped up in big matches over the last few years, especially in the Champions League, and that belief is now being tested on the biggest stage of all.
Rice did not pretend the final is straightforward. He said PSG are “a really good side” and pointed out that last season’s two-legged tie could have gone either way, even though Arsenal were knocked out in the semi-finals. That is the friction in this meeting: Arsenal believe they have learned enough from that loss to handle the moment better, but PSG remain the team that ended their last European run and the same side standing between them and a first Champions League crown.
For Rice, the stakes are personal as well as collective. He said he has already lost two EURO finals and one League Cup final, a record that has sharpened his hunger rather than dulled it. “I would like to say I’m a big-game player,” he said, and his record with West Ham and Arsenal gives that claim some weight.
He has not lifted the Champions League trophy yet, and that is the only unfinished line that matters now. If Arsenal are going to turn a season of promise into something bigger, they will have to do it against the side that denied them last year, in a final that Rice clearly believes can define what comes next.
