Former Barcelona striker Gary Lineker has named Barcelona, Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain as favourites for this season’s Champions League and said he expects the final to be between Barcelona and Arsenal.
Lineker argued that Hansi Flick’s side are due to win the competition. Barcelona began their campaign with a 5-1 home win over Feyenoord on Wednesday. Arsenal beat Napoli 1-0 through Martin Ødegaard’s late goal. Mikel Arteta’s team lost last season’s final to Paris Saint-Germain on penalties; Lineker still thinks the Premier League champions will go close again.
On The Rest Is Football he said: “Those two teams [Barcelona and PSG] probably have to be favourites along with maybe Arsenal, but Barcelona are looking a bit tasty at present. I fancy Barcelona this season, I think they’re due. I’ve got a feeling that PSG are not going to win it this season and I think that it will be between Barcelona and Arsenal.”
An early 5-1 and a tight 1-0 are thin evidence for a May final, but Lineker is reading trajectory rather than a single scoreline. Flick’s Barcelona look open and high-scoring; Arteta’s Arsenal look like a side that knows how to win an ugly European night. His dismissal of a PSG repeat is the speculative part: last year’s winners do not vanish because a pundit has a feeling.
The useful part of the remark is the shortlist. Three clubs, two of them in his imagined final, and a claim that “due” can matter as much as pedigree. The league phase will test whether Barcelona stay “tasty” when the draw hardens, and whether Arsenal can turn last May’s near-miss into another night in the last two.
