Kylian Mbappe, Neymar or Robert Lewandowski: Who will write their name in Champions League history?

Both PSG and Bayern Munich possess excellent players in exceptional form – but who will rise to the occasion?

(Getty)

While there is an “excited focus” around both the Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain squads, Robert Lewandowski and Neymar are in the kind of mindsets where it feels like everything is falling their way.

They will go through their usual pre-game routines – with the Brazilian’s the more elaborate – but there isn’t the same urge to complete superstitions. There’s nothing like Benfica’s Eusebio putting a lucky coin inside his boot ahead of his brilliant 1962 final performance, or Pippo Inzaghi eating all but two biscuits out of a children’s pack, as he did before the 2007 final and every big game.

Lewandowski and Neymar are already in that kind of serene concentration that is necessary for such matches.

That comes from much more than recent form, brilliant as it is for both. While Neymar has been decisively influential in a way not seen since he was at Barcelona, Lewandowski has hit 15 goals in nine games, and scored in every individual one of them so far. It is quite a streak.

Only the final remains, but it is that prospect that is firing them further.

Robert Lewandowski has scored 15 goals in nine games (Reuters) (REUTERS)

Both players at various points over the last few years wondered whether they would ever be at this stage again. It is why both also seriously considered moves to Real Madrid or elsewhere. Lewandowski lost the 2013 final with Borussia Dortmund to Bayern. Neymar did score in Barcelona’s 2015 victory. But they were at different points of their careers, and there was the growing concern that they were wasting their prime in the Champions League.

This vindicates Lewandowski’s decision to stay at Bayern, and those of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe to move to PSG.

They want that Champions League above all else, and are now fully aware that they can be more influential in at last delivering it than anybody else.

This is something else that elevates a final that feels so even, where there feels little difference between the teams in terms of overall quality. The players of finest individual quality can have a greater effect.

Some of the players on both sides have sat around in hotels discussing the night’s historical significance. They are aware they can enter a lineage of lasting final displays that includes Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas in 1960; Eusebio in 1962; Johan Cruyff in 1972; Zinedine Zidane in 2002; Steven Gerrard in 2005; Inzaghi in 2008; Diego Milito in 2010; Lionel Messi in 2011 and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2014.

Kylian Mbappe has the pace to punish Bayern’s high line (Getty)

That is a challenge only charged by the question surrounding the next best player in the world. And that is a question that for once has much more substance than any other recent season. This is the first season that neither Ronaldo nor Messi have been in the semi-finals since 2006.

It does feel like we are taking the first few steps into that next era. The wonder is whether any of these players will stride into it and stake their claim. Perhaps the absence of a Ballon D’Or winner this year may actually represent a bookend in that regard. This final could certainly go down as a landmark season. It does have more of the potential next best players than most possible finals.

Two of the best claimants are within one club, in Neymar and Mbappe. They are currently working together supremely.

That is another element that enlivens the challenge. Excellent as these two teams are, they do feel particularly susceptible to the specific qualities of individuals on the other side.

Bayern’s high line has struggled with pace in behind. No one in football has pace that hurts you like Mbappe. Lewandowski draws defenders to punish in precisely the way PSG have found problems with, partially because they haven’t faced the challenge that often.

But that also points to another possibility in this showpiece, that has just as rich a history in the Champions League final. That is when stars occupy so much attention that it actually allows other names to be the decisive figure.

For that, you only have to look to Real Madrid’s Hector Rial 1956; Francisco Gento 1958; Pierino Prati 1969; Franz Roth 1976; Felix Magath 1983; Daniele Massaro 1994; Karl-Heinz Riedle 1997.

Both players have plenty of candidates there, too

Neymar is amid one of his best patches of form since leaving Barcelona (Reuters)

Consider the semi-final heroes. Serge Gnabry scored two on Wednesday night to make it nine goals in nine Champions League games this season. He also has precisely the pace from deep that can unravel PSG’s more pedestrian midfield.

The French champions have similar impact, mind, in Angel Di Maria. He was even more influential than Gnabry in their own semi-final. He has also been man of the match in a Champions League final in this very arena before, making the Stadium of Light his own in Real Madrid’s 2014 victory.

It was one of the things so often unfairly forgotten about Di Maria. He might have been disappointing at Manchester United, but that was just a brief spell amid a career largely characterised by brilliant performances. The Argentine has really been the ultimate big-game player, as willing to be as industrious as he is influential.

Di Maria illustrated that in the semi-final. But this is now about the final, and a chance to have an impact that lasts.

It is rare that so many excellent players go into a Champions League final with each on exceptional individual form. It probably hasn’t happened in modern times, and that may be due to the distinctive format.

Every one of them knows they have a chance at a rare type of glory.