The Champions League, the most important continental trophy in European club soccer, is the prize at stake in the final at Budapest on Saturday. For Paris Saint-Germain and Luis Enrique, it doesn't end there.On the line against Arsenal for the defending champion and its serial-winning Spanish coach is the chance to stake its claim to be considered the greatest team of this era."I arrived at the club thinking, ‘My objective is to make history,’ and we have indeed made history,” Luis Enrique said. "We want to keep writing the story because we believe there’s still more there for us to achieve.”PSG is already in the conversation when it comes to judging the finest teams to have won the title in the age of the Champions League.But sometimes cold, hard facts are required to drive the point home.Victory at the Puskas Arena would see PSG become only the second team to retain the trophy since the old European Cup was rebranded as the Champions League in 1992.For many years it didn't happen even for teams regarded as generationally great.Pep Guardiola's Barcelona won two in three years. AC Milan and Juventus each reached three consecutive finals in the 90s but only won one apiece. Ajax and Manchester United took title defenses all the way to the final only to fall at the last hurdle.Real Madrid - winner of more European titles than any other club - finally bucked that trend, winning three in a row from 2016-18. What seemed unthinkable before and since would suddenly seem a very real target for PSG if it prevails on Saturday.Luis Enrique would join Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane as a three-time Champions League winner. Not that his motivation is based on personal accolades.Having won the Champions League with Barcelona, Luis Enrique has produced a PSG team that has set the benchmark in Europe over the past two seasons. It combines attacking flair with an energy and tenacity that appears to be moving the sport in a new direction. A team that plays with a high risk of being exposed defensively for the ultimate reward.At its best, PSG seems unstoppable, with last year's 5-0 rout of Inter Milan in the final the most dominant in the tournament's history.And with a squad that has an average age of under 24, the potential is there for it to dominate for years to come.Desire Doue, the two-goal hero of last year's final, is just 20. Tireless midfielder Joao Neves is 21.It is plain to see in PSG's performances - such as the 5-4 win over Bayern Munich in the semifinals - that this is a special team, but titles are needed to confirm its status among the greatest.This combination of pictures created on May 27, 2026 shows Arsenal's Norwegian midfielder #08 Martin Odegaard running with the ball during the English Premier League football match between Arsenal and Burnley at the Emirates Stadium in London on May 18, 2026 and Paris Saint-Germain's Brazilian defender Marquinhos running with the ball during the French L1 football match between PSG and Nantes at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris on March 14, 2021. (Photo by Glyn KIRK and FRANCK FIFE / AFP) To many, Guardiola's Barcelona that won in 2009 and 2011 with Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta is the benchmark for the modern era.To some, Luis Enrique's title-winning Barcelona team in 2015, spearheaded by Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez, was even better.Statistically, none can match Zinedine Zidane's Madrid team of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Luka Modric and Toni Kroos that won three consecutive titles. Over a five-year period Madrid was European champion four times.Overall, PSG has a long way to go to come close to Madrid's 15 titles, having won the Champions League for the first time last year. But it can stake its claim to be considered the best of its era.PSG has certainly taken its time to reach this point. Backed by Qatari riches, it bought the best players in the world in its bid to conquer Europe - Messi, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Zlatan Ibrahimovic as billions of dollars were spent.It wasn't until there was a shift in focus to a more team-based model - still packed with superstars acquired at exorbitant cost - that PSG reached the summit.Out went the Galacticos Messi, Neymar and finally Mbappe. In came Doue, Joao Neves, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. Ousmane Dembele - a player who hadn't fulfilled expectations at Barcelona - reemerged in Paris as the talisman of a spectacularly talented, but inexperienced group.A semifinal in Luis Enrique's first campaign was followed by last year's triumph and the chance to go back-to-back this season."I’d say there was more pressure last season because everyone was like, ‘This is it! We can’t lose this time!’” Luis Enrique said. "This time around, there is pressure because we believe we deserve it.”While PSG targets history, Arsenal is aiming to pull off an upset and win its first Champions League title.The Premier League champion advanced to the final after topping the league phase of the European competition with a perfect winning record.Mikel Arteta's team is in the final after being beaten by PSG in last year's semifinals."It’s two teams that are exceptional in the way they function, (how) they adapt and the intensity they play with,” Arteta said. "We’re going to have to be our best version to win it.”

WASHINGTON:  A first-of-its-kind drug for hepatitis B is letting some patients stop treatment without showing signs of the dangerous liver virus, what’s called a "functional cure,” researchers reported Thursday.In two international studies, about 1 in 5 patients given the experimental drug saw their virus reduced to levels low enough for the immune system to keep in check."We have not had a treatment which has come to this level of cure,” Dr. Seng Gee Lim of the National University Health System of Singapore, who helped lead the GSK-funded studies, told reporters before presenting the findings at a scientific meeting in Barcelona, Spain.The data also was published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.Chronic hepatitis B can cause liver cancer or liver failure, and kills about 1.1 million people around the world each year. Improvements to today’s lifelong therapy, which can be hard to stick with or to access in some countries, have been sought for decades.The new findings "represent a major step,” Dr. Anna Lok, a hepatitis expert at the University of Michigan who wasn’t involved in the research, wrote in the journal. But she cautioned that more study is needed to see how long that remission-like state lasts.The drug is bepirovirsen, nicknamed "bepi” and developed by GSK and Ionis Pharmaceuticals. It is under fast-track review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with a decision expected in October. Regulators in Japan, China and Europe also are considering the drug.Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection spread through contact with blood or other bodily fluids, including childbirth. A highly effective vaccine can prevent it. For people who are infected, many have an "acute” illness that lasts several months. But for some - about 1.7 million people in the U.S. and more than 250 million worldwide - it becomes a chronic form that gradually damages the liver.Standard treatments, including daily pills, reduce levels of the virus and prevent liver damage. But a true cure is elusive because hepatitis B has an unusual ability to hide in the body, ready to rebound if therapy stops.The new drug attacks hepatitis B by binding to its genetic components, suppressing viral replication as well as a key protein, the "S” or surface protein, and stimulates the immune system, said GSK vice president Melanie Paff.The trials included 1,838 patients assigned to get either a bepi shot or a dummy shot weekly for six months, in addition to their regular pills.If the virus was undetectable for six months after stopping the shots, they could stop their regular pills, too. In about 20% of the bepi recipients, the virus remained undetectable for six more months after they stopped all treatment - that "functional cure” - something no patients given the dummy shots achieved, the researchers reported.Bepi recipients who started the study with lower levels of that S protein were slightly more likely to achieve a functional cure, Lim said. He is doing additional research to try to determine why only some people respond.As for how long the functional cure lasts, GSK has tracked a small number of patients from earlier-stage studies and found most still faring well up to three years later, Paff said.Lim said side effects included mild injection-site redness or pain and a temporary rise in enzymes that can indicate liver stress.Lok, the Michigan hepatitis expert, noted the trials didn’t include patients with cirrhosis, high S protein levels or other complicating factors.