Key events
28 min: Pubill stands on the prone Calafiori’s hand. Accidental? Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
27 min: Arsenal are now making Atleti do a lot of chasing. The visitors finally intercept, and though Lookman’s probe down the left goes nowhere, that’s a welcome breather for the visitors.
25 min: A nice stat courtesy of Amazon Prime: Arsenal have failed to score from their previous 42 Champions League corners. Well, make that 43 now, but this one comes close to snapping that run, Lewis-Skelly barging into the box from the left and whistling a low ball across the face of goal that just needs touching home. But there’s nobody in red there.
24 min: Atleti started the better, but Arsenal are beginning to take control now. Rice powers his way past Griezmann on the left touchline, and reaches the byline before his cutback earns another Arsenal corner.
22 min: Gyökeres and Saka get in each other’s way down the inside-right channel. A shame, because Gyökeres looked to have the better of Koke, but clanked into his confused pal. Koke makes off with the ball to clear.
21 min: Alvarez looks to spin Rice on the centre spot and is clipped to the ground. Now it’s Diego Simeone’s turn to pull some touchline shapes.
19 min: White slips a cute defence-splitter down the inside-right channel. Saka cuts back but can’t find Gyökeres in the middle. The ball’s only half cleared, and Gabriel has a pop from the edge of the D. He pulls his low drive wide right. Oblak had it covered. Mikel Arteta almost spins through an entire 360 degrees in a mixture of excitement and frustration.
17 min: … Rice loops long to Saka, on the right-hand corner of the six-yard box. Saka’s all alone, but can’t adjust his body and scuffs a poor attempt well wide of both goal and side netting.
16 min: … but it’s Arsenal who win the first corner of the evening, Gyökeres threatening to skin Le Normand for pace down the left. He nearly does so, but has to settle for the set piece. From which …
15 min: Arsenal have had 74 percent of the possession so far. But it’s Atleti who have posed the biggest threat. Diego Simeone will be relatively pleased with his team’s start.
14 min: Raya plays a dangerous ball out from his box, and Saka does well to deal with it under pressure from a two-player pincer movement. He rolls back to the keeper, who distributes safely this time. The visitors are pressing hard during these early exchanges.
13 min: That close shave has got the crowd a little bit jittery. Jangling nerves almost audible, the volume dropping for the first time since kick-off.
11 min: Llorente outmuscles Lewis-Skelly 30 yards from the Arsenal goal, forcing the makeshift midfielder to bring him down. A free kick out on the left. Everyone lines up on the edge of the box. The ball’s worked to the right, where Griezmann reaches the byline and cuts back. Simeone, steaming in like that tifo ship, tries to force the ball into the bottom right, but Rice extends a leg and his lunge is enough to make Simeone clank wide right. Atleti the first team to come close.
9 min: Calafiori finds himself in a pocket of space, 25 yards out, and elects to shoot. As the ball sails high and wide left, Trossard, in acres of space to the defender’s left, gesticulates in irritation. Calafiori took the wrong option there.
8 min: Griezmann wedges Simeone into space down the right. Simeone crosses low for Alvarez, who arrives just in time to poke wide right of goal. Atleti bear their teeth for the first time.
7 min: Eze faffs around in midfield, and it’s his turn to be stripped of possession, by Griezmann. But the whistle goes for a foul. That’s a bit soft, and Arsenal get away with one, because Griezmann was off on the counter.
5 min: Pubill dallies on the ball and has it picked clean off his toe by Trossard. The steal doesn’t lead to anything other than an enthusiastic cheer from the home fans, but the pace is frenetic and that’s a reminder that nobody will want to be caught snoozing tonight.
3 min: Arsenal get their foot on the ball and stroke it around the back. One of those It’s Our Gaff statements.
2 min: Saka is caught late by Koke. Nothing too serious, but it’s one of those We’re Here statements. The noise, though!
Atletico Madrid kick off. Arsenal are kicking towards the Clock End during this first half. Meanwhile Randy Gatley would like to discuss the crests on those pennants: “Couldn’t agree more. How did Arsenal overlook two baller crests to choose the rejected Load Cannons button design for an unsuccessful Windows 95 Naval Warfare Simulator? Right up there with Napoli’s ‘No button for the staff intranet polling module’. After the shame of this defeat, a Champions League final hardly seems to matter.”
The teams are out! And the band strikes up …
♫ ♪ ♬ North London forever
Whatever the weather
These streets are our own
And my heart will leave you never
My blood will forever run through the sto-oo-oone ♪ 🎵 🎶
♫ ♪ ♬ Die Meister
Die Besten
Les grandes équipes
The chaaaaaaaaaampions! ♪ 🎵 🎶
Arsenal wear their famous red shirts with white sleeves. Atleti are in second-choice dark blue. The Emirates is bouncing. Up pops a tifo, exciting and new. It’s a boat! Arsenal’s proud ship depicted full-steam ahead of a defeated flotilla of European giants. It reads: COME ABOARD, WE’RE EXPECTING YOU OVER LAND AND SEA. Kick-off coming right up!
Pre-match postbag. “Took my nephews to see the Arsenal team bus arrive and what an excellent idea from REDaction Gooners. The ground is already buzzing with plenty of time to go to continue building. Trust the boys to get the job done tonight, hopefully early doors with no injuries” – Jakob Mathiszig-Lee
“Lots of red and white striped shirts on view as I travelled from Camden to Baker Street by bus earlier. Feels like a proper cup tie night” – Gary Naylor
“Hoping to see Ben White stamping magnetic boots over the Atletico badge on the side of that bus, like Wallace in The Wrong Trousers” – Alan Baverstock
“Two great teams. Two absolute gentlemen managers. Two teams that deserve to win the big cup but surprisingly never managed. No better prospect for a neutral. Arsenal carries the home advantage but there is absolutely no margin for error. The prospect of landing the league and bagging the coveted double must weigh on Arsenal. That could, in fact, hand over the advantage to Simeone” – krishnamoorthy v
“A thorough and entertaining introduction as usual (crawl, crawl) but with one absolute howler: Arsenal had to use up precisely no energy in beating Fulham at the weekend. We were so appalling that Arsenal did not need to rise from their bathchairs to administer a thrashing” – Richard Hirst
“I’ve heard some talk online about whoever wins tomorrow — Bayern or PSG — is going to win the whole tournament. Me myself, I’m not so sure. I am an avowed Bayern fan and have been enjoying this season so far (Vincent Kompany, who would have known? Certainly not me when he was appointed) but I can’t help feeling that, if we move on tomorrow, we won’t win it all. Our squad is exhausted. We have key injuries. We still can’t defend a corner to save our lives. Manuel Neuer is either the best player on the pitch or plays like he has never seen a pitch before. Arsenal capitalised on this in the group stage. Who’s to say that they (or Atletico) can’t do it again?” – Rebekah Voss
Pennant Watch. There’s nothing wrong, in and of itself, with the commemorative gift stand-in captain Bukayo Saka will hand over to his opposite number Koke. But that badge. Come on, man. Stand it next to the time-honoured Victoria Concodria Crescit crest and weep. And that’s before we get to the stratospherically sexy Art Deco A-football-C logo. Ever since that fateful rebrand, Herbert Chapman has been spinning elegantly in his grave, nearly a quarter of a style-free century on.
Atletico Madrid’s offering, however, is a thing of timeless beauty. Enrique Collar would have been proud to hand that over. Arsenal are favourites to go through tonight, but they’ve lost this very important pre-match skirmish.
Mikel Arteta, barely able to suppress an excited grin, speaks to TNT Sports. “I have never seen an atmosphere like this … when we entered the stadium … great to see … enthusiasm … [Myles Lewis-Skelly] has played many times in [midfield] … he is very flexible … we need to be very adaptable … very aggressive with the ball … I hope [Bukayo Saka] can maintain the form he showed a few days ago and help us win the game … [Atletico] can manage moments in games … we have prepared … referee decisions are out of our control, let’s hope this time they can get it right … let’s go for it, let’s do it!”
Atleti’s big worry was the fitness of Julian Alvarez – but the former Manchester City striker starts. He had been taken off with an injured ankle during the first leg, and missed the game at Valencia at the weekend. His first-leg equaliser made him the first Atleti player to score ten goals in a single Champions League campaign, and the fastest Argentinian to 25 goals overall. He got there in 41 appearances; Lionel Messi needed 42. Atleti make just the one change from their first-leg starting XI: Robin Le Normand comes in for Johnny Cardoso, who drops to the bench.
The big news for Arsenal: Miles Lewis-Skelly is rewarded for his impressive showing in midfield against Fulham with a starting spot. His replacement of Martin Zubimendi is one of five changes from the starting line-up in Madrid: Eberechi Eze, Bukayo Saka, Riccardo Calafiori and Leandro Trossard also start tonight, at the expense of Noni Madueke, Gabriel Martinelli, Piero Hincapié and captain Martin Ødegaard, who all drop to the bench. Kai Havertz has shaken off his injury concerns and is named as a sub.
The teams
Arsenal: Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Rice, Lewis-Skelly, Saka, Eze, Trossard, Gyokeres.
Subs: Kepa, Setford, Mosquera, Hincapie, Odegaard, Gabriel Jesus, Martinelli, Norgaard, Madueke, Havertz, Zubimendi, Dowman.
Atlético Madrid: Oblak, Pubill, Le Normand, Hancko, Ruggeri, Simeone, Llorente, Koke, Lookman, Griezmann, Alvarez.
Subs: Musso, Gimenez, Mendoza, Johnny, Sorloth, Baena, Almada, Lenglet, Molina, Vargas, Bonar, Diaz.
Referee: Daniel Siebert (Germany)
On The Buses. Both teams have arrived at the Emirates, their team buses winding their way through a crowd in full party mode on the streets of Holloway. Atleti stayed in a different hotel to the one they used for their aforementioned 4-0 thumping in October, the five-star Courthouse Hotel in Shoreditch as opposed to the four-star Marriott Hotel in Regents Park. Diego Simeone was asked about the switch, amid reports of his ordering it on the grounds of jinxing, superstition, bad luck, etc., and deadpanned: “The hotel was cheaper.” The smile he flashed seconds later suggested he wasn’t telling the whole story. Whether he was similarly smiling last night as sleep-bothering fireworks were set off near that hotel has not been reported.
Here’s some more statistical encouragement for Arsenal. They’ve lost just two of their last 23 games in the Champions League, winning 17; are unbeaten in the competition this season; and have lost just one of their last 24 home matches in Europe. Atleti by contrast have won only two of their last 13 matches against English teams, losing the last four away. But they have won six of their last seven semi-finals in Europe, a fact we add because it is possible to have too much statistical encouragement, confidence often leading to second guessing, feelings of suspicion, then finally full-blown paranoia. Even keel, everyone, even keel.
Arsenal will be buoyed by Manchester City’s failure to beat Everton last night, the holy grail of a first Premier League title in 22 years within touching distance now. But they had to use up some precious energy beating Fulham at the weekend, while Diego Simeone had the luxury of resting his entire first-choice team in seeing off Valencia, making 11 changes from the first leg. Still, if you can’t get yourself pumped up at the business end of the Champions League, when can you? And Arsenal are pumped up.
After last week’s result, both clubs have statistical history on their side. Arsenal have won six of their last nine European ties in which they’ve drawn away in the first leg, while Atleti have won six of their last ten European ties in which they’ve drawn the first leg at home. Meanwhile Arsenal are one from one in Champions League semi-finals against opposition from La Liga, having beaten Villarreal 1-0 on aggregate in 2006 … but Atleti are three from three against Premier League opponents at the same stage in European competition, beating Liverpool on away goals in the 2009-10 Europa League, Chelsea 3-1 on aggregate in the 2013-14 Champions League, and Arsenal themselves in the 2017-18 Europa League. So it turns out we are at the Something’s Got To Give stage after all.
Preamble
The two biggest names in European football never to win the continent’s biggest prize meet for a place in the final. It’s 20 years since Arsenal found themselves 14 minutes from glory, only for Barcelona to hit them with a couple of sucker punches; their continental roll of honour (one Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, one Cup Winners’ Cup) is absurdly short given the size and status of the grand old club. Atlético Madrid have made more of an imprint in Europe, with three Europa Leagues, a Cup Winners’ Cup and three Super Cups, but the big one has eluded them as well: they’ve suffered the trophy being snatched from under their nose in excruciating circumstances not just once but three times, in 1974, 2014 and 2016, insult being bundled up with injury on the latter two occasions by good old Real Madrid.
We’re not quite at the Something’s Got To Give stage, seeing this is just the semi, and whoever gets through will be strong second favourites against either Bayern Munich or PSG. But something’s got to give at some point, surely, and reaching the final is the necessary step in making that dream possible. So here we are. Atleti were the better side last week in Madrid, yet Arsenal were nevertheless a contentious penalty decision away from a priceless victory. Mikel Arteta’s men were certainly the better side when the teams met during the league phase last October, though, scoring four goals in 14 second-half minutes. So both teams will fancy their chances. Kick-off is at 8pm BST. Extra time and penalties not beyond the realms. It’s on!
