Piero Hincapié and Willian Pacho will face each other in the UEFA Champions League final when Arsenal meet Paris Saint Germain at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest on Saturday, May 30; the match starts at 11:00 in Ecuador and guarantees that one Ecuadorian will become a European champion.
The game will be shown in Ecuador on and via Disney+; organizers moved the usual final kickoff time for this edition to improve the experience for fans around the world. No open-air television signal has been confirmed in Ecuador.
Arsenal are expected to line up with Raya in goal behind a back four of Calafiori, Saliba, Gabriel and Mosquera, with Rice and Lewis-Skelly in midfield and Saka, Eze, Trossard and Gyökeres in attack. PSG’s expected eleven lists Safonov, Hakimi, Marquinhos, Pacho and Lucas Hernández across the back, Zaire-Emery, Vitinha and João Neves in midfield, and Dembélé, Kvaratskhelia and Doué leading the front line — with Pacho having played in every match on PSG’s road to Budapest.
Hincapié and Pacho were developed together at Independiente del Valle, one of South America's standout academies, and this is the first time two Ecuadorian footballers will face each other in a Champions League final. Hincapié has spoken about the moment they imagined as boys: "Lo conozco desde muy pequeño a Willian... Cuando éramos pequeños soñábamos con ese momento," and he framed the match in personal terms as well as collective stakes: "Llegar a una final de Champions siendo campeón de la Premier es algo muy importante" and — pointing to the prize at stake between friends — "Él ya fue campeón, esperemos que esta vez me toque a mí."
The runners to Budapest arrived by different routes. Arsenal reached the final after eliminating Atlético de Madrid 2-1 on aggregate and sealed the Premier League title for 2025/26 the week before the final with 85 points, ending a 22-year drought. PSG enter as the reigning Champions League winner; last season they beat Arsenal in the semifinals 3-1 on aggregate and then defeated Inter 5-0 in the final, a run that emphasizes why Paris remain the benchmark the rest of Europe must pass.
That recent history creates the match’s central friction: PSG are the defending champions and arrive with the experience of winning Europe's biggest prize, while Arsenal are one match away from completing a landmark season and one game from becoming one of the few teams to post an unbeaten Champions League campaign. Six of the last ten European meetings between the clubs saw both teams score, underlining the likelihood of an open contest even with so much on the line for both squads and for the two Ecuadorians standing on opposite flanks.
The concrete next step for Ecuadorian fans is straightforward: Arsenal and PSG kick off at 11:00 Ecuador time on May 30 from the Puskás Aréna and the game airs on and Disney+. What remains undecided is which of the two men who grew up training together at Independiente del Valle will finish the night as Champions League winner — the single result that will make one of them the first Ecuadorian to lift Europe’s top club trophy.
