Arsenal strip champions Real for semi-final place

Arsenal indeed “write their own history”, with the extra flourish that the only remontada was Bukayo Saka’s.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

Arsenal win 1-5 on aggregate

Real Madrid
Junior (67)

Arsenal
Saka (65), Martinelli (90+3)

The forward overcame his early penalty miss to score the divine goal that has ultimately eliminated the European champions, with Gabriel Martinelli then killing any dying belief that Real Madrid had to turn a great night into a great win. There was even the literal lovely touch of how Saka’s penalty was a lifted Panenka gone wrong, only for the forward to lift it over Thibaut Courtois in even better fashion.

Arsenal have now ascended to the Champions League semi-final for just the third time in their history. Perhaps it is fitting that they will return to Paris, where they lost their only Champions League final in 2006, to add to that sense of history building.

Belief will only grow with it, as Madrid may now be developing a complex about Arsenal. They are the only club to have played Madrid twice in the history of European competition and not been knocked out once.

That’s the kind of scale Mikel Arteta can now talk about. Arsenal may not have reached the performance heights of their pulverisation of Madrid in the first leg, but this was almost as impressive in its own way. Arteta’s side so professionally withstood Madrid’s attack to more consummately withstand all of the psychology around the remontada. The European champions never got close. They couldn’t. William Saliba’s atypical slip for Vinicius Junior to make it 1-1 stood out all the more because it was so rare in this match.