Luke Little and Gian van Veen lock horns in the PDC World Championship final tonight.It’ll mark the seventh time the pair have faced off having first come together in the World Youth Final in November 2023.Littler faces Van Veen tonight in the World Championship final tonightLittler won the first clash between the pair 6-4, before going on an extraordinary run at the World Championship a month later, ultimately losing to Luke Humphries in the final.Van Veen said of the Youth Final two years’ ago: “I played okay, I played well but I think after that game I said to myself, ‘okay, now the whole wide world knows what Luke Littler is about’.“Going into that match, I was favoured by the bookmakers, which is only a little more than two years ago. It sounds really crazy to be favoured against Luke Littler, but that was the case at that time.“After that match, I knew what Luke was capable of and he showed it on that stage. I said to myself, ‘okay, you can give him a good game’. I missed one dart to go 5-0, but then afterwards, we had so many great battles.”Littler has since gone on to become a force to be reckoned with on the darts circuit, and is aiming to become the first player to win back-to-back World Championship titles since Gary Anderson in 2016.Van Veen, meanwhile, has taken a little longer to reach the grand stage, though tonight’s clash marks the fifth time the Dutchman has faced Littler since the start of 2025.Littler and Van Veen level on head-to-head‘The Nuke’ won the first meeting between the pair last year, winning 10-4 in the UK Open.Van Veen, though, won the subsequent three clashes, beating Littler 7-6 at the Players Championship before claiming 7-4 and 6-4 victories on the European Tour.Littler then pulled the head-to-head back to 3-3 with a 2-0 win over Van Veen at the World Grand Prix in October.The result doesn’t quite paint the full picture as Van Veen produced the highest average in the tournament’s history, with 106.47.Littler booked his place in Saturday’s showpiece, and his third successive World Championship final, with a 6-1 demolition job of Ryan Searle in Friday’s first semi-final.Van Veen, meanwhile, overcame the legendary Gary Anderson to claim a 6-3 success in an Ally Pally classic in the second final-four showdown on Friday night.The Dutchman exclusively revealed to talkSPORT after his win over Anderson that he was ‘annoyed’ with himself for his reaction as the crowd booed ‘The Giant’ during their semi-final match up.“I felt a bit annoyed, not with the crowd, but with myself that it affected me so much in my biggest game of my career so far,” Van Veen revealed.“In my head I was like ‘you could lose it due to the crowd because you’re so annoyed’. I let it affect my game too much.”Who has performed better at the World Championship?18-year-old Littler heads into the final having won 14 televised titles compared to Van Veen’s two, suggesting the World Number One will handle the pressure better than his Dutch counterpart, who is ranked number three in the world.Van Veen celebrates his 6-3 semi-final win over AndersonGettyLittler also boasts a higher tournament average of 105.35 to Van Veen’s 102.99, while the former boasts the better checkout percentage of 58.8 per cent to the latter’s 55 per cent.Coverage for the World Championship final starts at 8pm while the showdown itself is scheduled to begin at 8:15pm tonight.You can listen to it live on talkSPORT.