PSG vs Inter Champions League final: Is betting the under the smart way to go?

New York Times

6 days ago

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It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of a showpiece event like the UEFA Champions League final, anticipating goals galore. You remind yourself of the old adage — 'finals are typically cagey affairs!' — yet somehow end up ignoring it, expecting fireworks instead.
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We're all human, after all.
Ahead of the 2025 edition, where Paris Saint-Germain will face Inter for the right to be crowned kings of Europe, let's look into the past 10 finals and see what we can glean from them. Is that adage correct? And does that mean there's value in betting the under?
Seven of the last 10 finals, beginning with Barcelona's 3-1 triumph over Juventus in 2015 and ending with Real Madrid's 2-0 victory over Borussia Dortmund last year, have gone under the 2.5 mark. In fact, each of the last six have, with a run of four consecutive 1-0 wins between 2020 and 2023 sandwiched between a couple of 2-0s.
Admittedly, glancing through the list, it's easy to pick out finals that probably could — should — have seen more goals. For example, Madrid beat Liverpool 1-0 in 2022 largely because goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois delivered an other-worldly performance, making nine saves. Similarly, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar missed their fair share of chances in 2020 as PSG lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich.
But that's football. Players make mistakes and they miss chances — especially on the biggest of stages when the lights are at their brightest. Ten games is not an exhaustive sample size, but it's bulky enough to paint a picture your gut tells you is true.
Betfair's historical odds tell us that four of those seven finals that went under 2.5 goals, were odds-off. The biggest win would have come in that 2020 final between Bayern and PSG, where the under was priced at an incredible 11/5. The market expected goals in that game, but they simply did not come.
The other finals — 2021, 2022 and 2024 — were priced at 13/10, 6/5 and 6/4, respectively. Two of those matchups included Real Madrid, which is perhaps a signal that bookmakers generally bank on goals when they're in action. But since 2018 — or, more accurately, since Cristiano Ronaldo left — that's been a losing strategy.
Intriguingly, not one of the past 10 finals has featured three goals. It's either two or fewer, or four or more. No in between.
We're still days out from the final, so you can expect the odds to shift around a little, but for now, the over 2.5 and under 2.5 markets are priced extremely similarly.
Historical data shows this tends to happen when the bookmakers foresee an extremely even final. For example, in 2021, when Chelsea beat Man City 1-0, the over was 11/10 and the under was 4/5. Two years later, when City beat Inter 1-0, the over was 4/5 and the under 6/5.
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And this coming bout between PSG and Inter feels very tough to call. It's a matchup of two exceptional sides who utilise completely different strategies: Les Parisiens are as silky on the ball as it gets, while the Nerazzurri are combative and wily. Few are confidently calling a winner — and if they are, they're calling it close.
In that situation, and with the weight of history onside, the under certainly feels like the play once again.
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(Photo of Yann Sommer: Shaun Botterill / Getty Images)