PSG weath­ered one at­tack af­ter an­oth­er and showed re­mark­able adapt­abil­i­ty to hold off and de­feat an in­spired Ar­se­nal 2-1 to reach the Cham­pi­ons League fi­nal on Wednes­day.

De­prived of the ball pos­ses­sion it so of­ten en­joys, PSG looked in trou­ble ear­ly on but found the right an­swers to hurt the Gun­ners. It re­lied on counter-at­tack­ing foot­ball and an ex­cel­lent Gi­an­lui­gi Don­narum­ma to pre­vail, ad­vanc­ing 3-1 on ag­gre­gate.

PSG reached the fi­nal of Eu­rope’s elite tour­na­ment for the sec­ond time in five years. It will take on In­ter Mi­lan on May 31 af­ter the three-time cham­pi­on de­feat­ed Barcelona 7-6 on ag­gre­gate in one of the great­est semi­fi­nals in the com­pe­ti­tion’s his­to­ry.

PSG had lost to Borus­sia Dort­mund at this stage last year and was beat­en by Bay­ern Mu­nich in the 2020 fi­nal.

PSG broke the dead­lock in the 27th minute from a set piece af­ter the Ar­se­nal de­fense cleared a free kick to­ward the edge of the area. The ball bounced back in­to the path of Fabi­an Ruiz, who smashed a stun­ning half-vol­ley in­to the back of the net.

Achraf Haki­mi curled in a pre­cise fin­ish in the 72nd minute to make it 2-0 on the night be­fore Bukayo Sa­ka pulled one back for the Gun­ners.

PARIS (AP)