Rice Cites Final Losses as Fuel Ahead of Arsenal’s Champions League Showdown

Rice Cites Final Losses as Fuel Ahead of Arsenal's Champions League Showdown

Declan Rice has described himself as a “big-game player” and pointed to a string of final defeats as the motivation driving him into Arsenal’s Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain. Speaking to UEFA’s official platform during the build-up to the match in Budapest, the England midfielder said the pain of past losses had sharpened rather than diminished his hunger for silverware.

Rice has reached and lost several major finals, including two UEFA European Championship finals with England and a League Cup final. Those setbacks, he argued, compound rather than discourage ambition. “I’ve lost a fair few finals now,” he said. “It hurts because when you get to a final, you want to win that trophy. But also, all the little losses that you take stand you in really good stead. It makes you hungrier to want to go and win stuff.” Arsenal face a PSG side they lost to at the semi-final stage of the same competition the previous season. Rice identified the central lesson from that defeat: “You’ve got to take your chances, because we had plenty of them.”

The 26-year-old – who won the UEFA Europa Conference League with West Ham before joining Arsenal – has been a consistent presence in the Gunners’ midfield throughout a campaign the draft describes as yielding the Premier League title, ending a lengthy drought for the club. He recorded four goals and seven assists across 36 Premier League appearances, according to the draft.

Arsenal enter the final having already secured the Premier League, giving them the opportunity to complete a domestic and European double. Rice acknowledged the weight of that prospect. “Champions League final – it gets no bigger than that,” he said. “What a chance, what an opportunity.”