{"id":669668,"date":"2026-05-12T10:06:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=669668"},"modified":"2026-05-12T10:06:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:06:59","slug":"explaining-the-champions-league-final-betting-favourites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/05\/12\/explaining-the-champions-league-final-betting-favourites\/","title":{"rendered":"Explaining the Champions League Final Betting Favourites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before a ball was even kicked in the second legs of each UEFA Champions League semi-final tie, there were some betting odds trying to decide on a winner. Of the four available clubs we will be looking at where they ranked in the odds before the final and explain why they find themselves there as many factors can go into curating speculative odds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Champions League Final Match Details<\/h2>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Champions League Final
\nFerenc Puskas Arena
\nBudapest, Hungary
\nMay 30, 2026<\/p>\n

How PSG and Arsenal Arrived at the 2026 Champions League Final<\/h3>\n

Paris Saint-Germain<\/h3>\n

The favourite in virtually every sportsbook, Les Parisiens are the current holders of the trophy and are backed by Luis Enrique, a born winner who has tasted success everywhere he\u2019s been. PSG were made to look somewhat fallible in the Club World Cup and injuries in this term have seen them look less dominant than usual.<\/p>\n

It is these reasons that we\u2019ve seen them fail to pull away in betting markets. Add in the goalkeeping disaster that was replacing Gianluigi Donnarumma with Lucas Chavlier (now dropped for Safonov) and you see in the big picture a unit that is beatable on their day.<\/p>\n

The reality is far worse for anyone standing in their way. The Ligue 1 champions are now back at full strength and look capable of outsourcing anyone they come up against. No matter the setup the attacking trio have fluid movement and all-round abilities that allow Ousmane Dembele, Kvicha Kvaratskhelia, and either Desire Doue or Bradley Barcola to smash in goals aplenty. They are having so much fun scoring, it\u2019s like those looking for casino games, slots, or blackjack at GambleGuru<\/a>. At some point it just becomes scoring for fun, as happened in the first leg against Bayern Munich in Paris.<\/p>\n

But can they have the same success against arguably the best centreback duo of Gabriel and Saliba, with world class goalkeeper David Raya in goal?<\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/h3>\n

Despite topping the league phase and being one of the more unbeatable machines in Europe, the Gunners find themselves trailing their fellow European giant in the betting markets.<\/p>\n

One likely answer for them dropping off is the doubts around Mikel Arteta to win such a trophy. He has only captured a minor trophy during his tenure in London so the step up to the Champions League would be a big one. There is also the issue of the Premier League title race as they will have to rotate throughout and deal with fatigue in tough domestic games on top of their European ambitions.<\/p>\n

But fresh off a well deserved masterclass against Diego Simeone\u2019s Atletico Madrid, the Gunners look the part. Stalwarts defensively, David Raya will pick up his third consecutive Golden Glove award. And with arguably the best centreback pairing on the planet in Gabriel and Saliba, they pose a challenge for PSG\u2019s machine.<\/p>\n

Featured Image Credit<\/strong><\/p>\n

IMAGO \/ Visionhaus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before a ball was even kicked in the second legs of each UEFA Champions League semi-final tie, there were some betting odds trying to decide on a winner. Of the four available clubs we will be looking at where they ranked in the odds before the final and explain why they find themselves there as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2013,"featured_media":659808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,31820,378,1367],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-betting","category-champions-league","category-paris-saint-germain"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669668"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":669670,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669668\/revisions\/669670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}