VILLANOVA, Pa. (AP) — When Villanova University's president, the Rev. Peter Donohue, was nearing graduation as a theatre student, a future pope wasn't far away on campus, studying math two grades below him.
On Thursday, church bells rang out for hours in celebration at the Augustinian school near Philadelphia after the 1977 alumnus Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the first pope from the United States in the history of the Catholic Church.
Click to Gallery
An informational sign is displayed on St. Thomas of Villanova Church on the Villanova University campus Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Students enjoy their break at the Villanova University campus, Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV appears at the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
A general view of the Villanova University campus is seen, Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
A general view of St. Thomas of Villanova Church on the Villanova University campus is seen, Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
The Rev. John Lydon spent 10 years living with the pope while on a mission in Peru. But back in 1977, Lydon was the student commencement speaker for their arts and sciences class at Villanova, too. He recalled trying to give an uplifting speech, focusing on overcoming indifference.
“I’m sure he doesn’t remember that speech, that’s so many years ago," Lydon said with a laugh. "But, it just shows you how the grace of God works.”
The school on the suburban Main Line near Philadelphia had reached the pinnacle of men's college basketball three times — winning championships in 1985, 2016 and 2018. But celebrating a pope in their ranks was literally unprecedented.
A billboard in Philadelphia showed the pope with a tagline: “From the Main Line to the Divine Line,” and the hashtag #WildcatToShepherd. Internet memes turned the pope's Roman numeral V into Villanova's logo and predictions piled up that the New York Knicks and its Villanova-laden lineup have a divine path to this year's title. Augustinian priests on campus are making rounds on the national TV circuit.
“We just all kind of lost it," said Villanova senior Peggy Murray, who met the world leader now known as His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, last year in Rome. “Just screaming and cheering and crying and having this knowledge that we met him. He was humble enough and cared enough about a group of gangly college students that he wanted to say Mass with us and now this is the person who’s our pope. I mean it means the world."
Donohue and the pope were on campus in the mid-1970s at an unsettled time around the end of the Vietnam War, while the Catholic Church had been in a state of change as well, Donohue added. As the campus was gearing up for the 1977 spring graduation, thousands of balloons were released at an event aimed at addressing world hunger, featuring floats, a carnival and the marching band, according to The Villanovan archives. Ads for cassette tapes and a “college disco splash party” flanked stories in the college newspaper.
Prevost graduated from Villanova with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics in 1977 and received an honorary Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, from the university in 2014, Donohue said. Prevost also hosted Villanova officials in Rome that year. Donohue said the pope is a Villanova basketball fan. And Donohue has taken note that whenever he or the university send out messages, they can check who opens them, and the pope does every time.
“Somebody sent me a text, one of the presidents from another one of the schools, said, ‘Three basketball championships and a pope. Do you people have to keep winning?’” Donohue said with a laugh. “It’s just different. It certainly has given us a lot of publicity.”
The Rev. Rob Hagan, known for long serving as Villanova's athletics department chaplain, spent his second year of a spiritual training boot camp of sorts 27 years ago to become an Augustinian. It was in Racine, Wisconsin, a place where through his regional leadership position Prevost would visit newbies like Hagan. He is now the Prior Provincial at The Augustinian Province of St. Thomas of Villanova.
“I saw him as kind of a mentor. You didn’t have to be in his presence very long before you understood how exceptionally bright he is," Hagan said. "And yet, coupled with a real warmth and approachability.”
Lydon, who lived with the pope in Peru, said he is an excellent singer, likes to cook and adopted Alianza Lima as his soccer team. Even when they both attended Villanova, the pope was a “model of what one would want in a future priest,” said Lydon, who is now stationed in Chicago.
“He was always a very bright person, but a humble person, one that you could easily talk to about anything, a person very devoted to his faith,” Lydon said.
Kevin Hughes, a theology and religious studies professor at Villanova, said Thursday that he and several people who were in his office went silent when they heard the news because they couldn't believe Prevost — an American — had been chosen.
Hughes described Prevost as a very gentle soul and somebody who knows how to connect with people.
“When you’re talking to him, he gives you his full attention,” he said. “I think he’s a very intelligent person. I think he’s very well read. But he’s never lost the pastoral touch.”
Prevost, 69, is a member of the Augustinian religious order and was formerly the prior general, or leader. The Order of St. Augustine was formed in the 13th century as a community of “mendicant” friars — dedicated to poverty, service and evangelization.
The requirements and ethos of the order are traced to the fifth century St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the theological and devotional giants of early Christianity. Villanova is one of two Catholic, Augustinian higher learning institutions in the U.S., according to its website. Villanova is rooted in the values of truth, unity, and love, inspired by the teachings of St. Augustine.
Villanova was founded in 1842 and boasts an environment in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. About 6,700 undergraduates and 3,100 graduate and law students are enrolled at the university. Other notable people who attended Villanova include former first lady Jill Biden, actor Bradley Cooper, recording artists Jim Croce and Toby Keith, and basketball stars such as Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges of the Knicks.
But for a Catholic university, nothing could surpass teaching a pope.
“I think anybody that has any familiarity with Villanova knows the kind of emphasis that we give in terms of community and building community," Donohue said. "I think that will be very much a part of what he is. It’s part of who he is, it’s part of his life as an Augustinian.”
Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee. Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed.
An informational sign is displayed on St. Thomas of Villanova Church on the Villanova University campus Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Students enjoy their break at the Villanova University campus, Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV appears at the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
A general view of the Villanova University campus is seen, Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
A general view of St. Thomas of Villanova Church on the Villanova University campus is seen, Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
The title match in soccer’s biggest club competition is underway: Paris Saint-Germain vs. Arsenal in the Champions League final in Budapest, Hungary.
PSG is looking to win Europe’s elite competition for a second straight year while Arsenal is bidding to become European champion for the first time on its return to the final after a 20-year wait.
Both teams are coming off winning their own domestic leagues, in France and England, respectively.
Here's the latest:
PSG is pushing forward and Arsenal is trying to slow things down. Arsenal defender Cristhian Mosquera is dragging his feet a bit too much at a throw-in and receives a yellow card for time wasting.
They do have potentially game-changing options on the bench, notably in France forward Bradley Barcola and Portugal striker Goncalo Ramos.
Ousmane Dembélé has been quiet – is he fully fit? – and has been snuffed out by Arsenal’s big center backs.
There’s also Senny Mayulu, a 20-year-old attacker who scored as a substitute for PSG in last year’s 5-0 win over Inter Milan in the final.
Arsenal has done a very good job of keeping PSG’s wide players quiet. Désiré Doué, the star of last year’s final, has been ineffective. So has Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
PSG is having lots of possession, but keeps coming up against a red wall with so little space around the box.
PSG’s players also look unusually nervous on the ball. Perhaps a little too afraid to get caught on the break again after falling behind early in the first half.
An early goal, then defend the lead.
This final is going just how Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta might have dreamed.
There was an element of fortune about Kai Havertz’s goal. But Arsenal fans won’t care about that.
PSG has had one shot on goal – a speculative long-range effort in the final minute of the half.
The defending champions need to improve drastically.
We’re past the half-hour point in the final, and PSG still hasn’t had a shot on target.
The French champions have, though, had more than 70% possession. But it’s not getting them anywhere.
The coaches of the two finalists – PSG’s Luis Enrique and Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta – are both Spanish. And they go way back.
They were together at Barcelona in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Arteta was starting his professional career and Luis Enrique was coming toward the end of his.
Arteta has said he “learnt a lot of things” from Luis Enrique as a player and now as a coach, saying he has “this unbelievable power” and an approach to life that he really likes.
Arteta had a spell on loan at PSG in 2000-01, when he played alongside Ronaldinho and Nicolas Anelka.
PSG goalkeeper Matvey Safonov needs attention from team medics after receiving a blow to the head.
Backup keeper Lucas Chevalier is warming up but Safonov remains on the field for now. Chevalier lost his starting spot in favor of Safonov earlier this season and, due to his limited playing time, was not selected for the French national team for the World Cup.
The teams are taking a break for drinks at the midway point of the first half.
Things are going just as Arsenal would like, still leading 1-0.
The Germany forward becomes only the third player – after Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United and Real Madrid) and Mario Mandzukic (Juventus and Bayern Munich) — to score in a Champions League final for two different teams, according to stats supplier Opta.
Arsenal is sitting deep and PSG has all the possession.
Expect that to be the case while Arsenal leads.
There’s even a bit of time-wasting from Arsenal on goal kicks -- to the annoyance of PSG fans.
Kai Havertz makes it 1-0 for the Gunners in the sixth minute.
Marquinhos’ attempted clearance rebounds off Arsenal winger Leandro Trossard and into the path of Havertz, who strides through on goal from near halfway. His shot from a narrow angle goes into the roof of the net.
The players emerge from their huddles and the Champions League is underway with Arsenal taking the kickoff.
An English fan was taken to hospital Saturday afternoon after suffering what police called a “life-threatening” injury in an electric scooter accident, but wasn’t willing to let the injury keep him from the final.
Budapest police said the man “left the hospital without permission because he was adamant about going to the match.”
They added that they are looking for the man and trying to contact his family “because he requires immediate medical attention.”
Only Real Madrid has successfully defended the Champions League title since the competition was rebranded in 1992.
Can PSG be the second team to do so?
The Madrid team of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale won the Champions League three times in a row (2016-18), under coach Zinedine Zidane.
Since then, no defending champion has reached the final until this PSG team, which beat Inter Milan 5-0 in Munich last year.
PSG and Arsenal have reached the title match adopting vastly different playing approaches.
PSG is the top-scoring team in the competition with 44 goals -- that’s an average of more than three per game.
Arsenal has the Champions League’s best defense, letting in just six goals in 14 games and keeping nine clean sheets, three more than any other team has registered.
▶ Read more
The man entrusted with being the referee for the biggest match in club soccer won’t even be going to next month's World Cup.
German ref Daniel Siebert was left off FIFA’s list of match officials for the World Cup – after going to the 2022 edition in Qatar – so handling the Champions League final is a consolation prize in a sense.
This will be the third straight round Siebert will have worked an Arsenal match.
Video review – or VAR, as it’s known in soccer circles — will be in operation for the final.
PSG: Matvey Safonov; Achraf Hakimi, Marquinhos, Willian Pacho, Nuno Mendes; Vitinha, João Neves, Fabian Ruiz; Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué.
Arsenal: David Raya; Cristhian Mosquera, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Piero Hincapié; Declan Rice, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Martin Odegaard; Leandro Trossard, Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka.
Zohran Mamdani is a big Arsenal fan and the New York Mayor was seen wearing club-branded clothing when he joined residents across the city for Eid al-Adha prayers this week.
In an article he has written for The Athletic ahead of the final, Mamdani said he started supporting Arsenal from the age of 9 after his uncle “introduced me to a team with a cannon on its shirt.”
He says supporting the team “increasingly became an exercise in nostalgia” until the recent uplift under Mikel Arteta.
“Over these past two years, no matter how chaotic life became, Arsenal remained the constant,” he writes.
Mamdani acknowledges PSG is “brilliant” and “frustratingly well-managed” by Luis Enrique, but has a message for Arsenal and its fans: “Enjoy this moment, because they don’t come around often.”
Fans are making their way to the stadium under a cloudy, threatening sky in Budapest, and they’ll have a role to play in the final.
Not least with the rival chants that you might get to hear in your TV broadcast.
PSG’s most notable song will see their passionate Ultras bellow “Tous ensemble on chantera” (All together we will sing).
Arsenal fans have their own chant that has grown in popularity over the last few seasons in manager Arteta’s 6 ½-year reign, with a chorus taken from “The Angel (North London Forever)” -- written by singer and Arsenal fan Louis Dunford in 2022.
▶ Read more
This is the first European Cup final to be staged in Hungary and it comes at an interesting time for the Central European country, a few weeks after right-wing populist leader Viktor Orbán‘s heavy defeat in the elections.
Péter Magyar is the prime minister and is set to attend the match at the 67,000-seat Puskas Arena, a stadium that opened in 2019 and was built on the same site as the previous Ferenc Puskas Stadion — named after the Hungarian and Real Madrid great who won three European Cups as a player.
Orbán is a massive soccer fan and attempted to bring back the glory days of the 1950s, when Hungary had one of the world’s top teams.
To that end, the arena, located a few kilometers east of central Budapest, has become a well-known host for European games. The stadium staged the UEFA Super Cup in 2020, as well as a slew of Champions League group games and four European Championship matches in 2021. In 2023, it hosted the Europa League final won by Sevilla.
Pre-match entertainment is being provided by American rock band The Killers, who are best known for songs like “Mr. Brightside,” “Smile Like You Mean It” and “Somebody Told Me.”
It differs from the Super Bowl, where artists perform in a halftime show.
The Killers, who hail from Las Vegas, predicted an “epic match” when they were announced to be performing – though at the time, they didn’t know who the finalists would be.
In previous years, Linkin Park, Lenny Kravitz and Dua Lipa have been headliners in Champions League finals.
Some 48,000 fans are expected to fill PSG’s stadium in Paris, the Parc des Princes, to watch the match on giant screens.
PSG said Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire is among the officials expected to attend.
Former players, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Claude Makélélé and Ronaldinho, have been invited to Budapest for the final.
It’s the first time in 55 years that clubs from two different capital cities are competing in the final of Europe’s biggest club competition.
The last was Ajax (of Amsterdam) vs. Panathinaikos (of Athens) in 1971.
There were only two before that: Benfica (Lisbon) vs. Real Madrid in 1962 and Real Madrid vs. Partizan Belgrade in 1966.
This is also the first major European final featuring teams from France and England.
It’s the last match of the European club season – and World Cup coaches will be watching on with a mixture of intrigue and nervousness.
The World Cup begins in 12 days, and the squads of both PSG and Arsenal are bulging with players heading to the tournament being held in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Any injuries sustained in the final could be devastating so close to the big kickoff.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta says winning the Premier League has whetted the players’ appetite for more trophies.
Nothing comes bigger than the Champions League.
“The ambition is bigger,” Arteta said in his pre-match news conference. “We have one, and we want the second one ... there has to be a platform to reach bigger destinations.”
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard was the first player in the squad to get his hands on the Premier League trophy, and he liked it.
“When you get the taste of winning and lifting a trophy,” Odegaard says, “you know how nice it feels. And we want to do it again.”
Many of soccer’s superstar players will be taking the field at Puskas Arena – not least PSG forward Ousmane Dembélé, the most recent world player of the year.
Désiré Doué, the 20-year-old forward who lit up last year’s final with two goals in the record 5-0 win over Inter Milan, is still a shining light for PSG along with Georgia winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and three of Cristiano Ronaldo’s top teammates with Portugal – Vitinha, Nuno Mendes and Joao Neves.
Arsenal has England stars Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice in midfield and the striker who has just sent Sweden to the World Cup – Viktor Gyökeres.
Groups of fans got physical late Friday in Budapest’s frequented party area, leading police to launch an investigation over disorderly conduct.
Videos on social media showed several dozen people throwing punches and kicks, driving another group down Király street in the capital’s District 7.
One fan held a burning red flare before throwing it toward the other group, which was retreating down the street. Budapest police said in a statement that the violence erupted shortly after midnight, and that it was using surveillance footage to try to identify participants.
__ AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Arsenal's Leandro Trossard falls to the ground in a clash with PSG's Desire Doue during the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Saturday, May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr Josek)
Arsenal's Kai Havertz celebrates after scoring during the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Saturday, May 30, 2026. AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
Arsenal fans cheers before the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Saturday, May 30, 2026. AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
Arsenal's Kai Havertz celebrates after scoring during the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Saturday, May 30, 2026. AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
PSG fans hold up their scarves before the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Saturday, May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
The trophy is displayed on the pitch before the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Monday, Jan. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Petr Josek)
Generel view of the Puskas Arena a day ahead of the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
PSG supporters react as they make their way to the stadium ahead of the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Saturday, May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Rudolf Karancsi-Albert)
PSG supporters are accompanied by security ahead of the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, Saturday, May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Rudolf Karancsi-Albert)
