It’s Thursday evening and the sun has finally come out in Madrid. I am sitting in my Air BnB and trying to collect my thoughts having spent a fair portion of my day staring at my phone and soaking up all the content. I keep scrolling through my camera roll to review the photos and videos I took myself and I am still struggling to articulate my feelings.
With around 10 minutes to go on Wednesday evening, I almost found myself regretting that there was no jeopardy left in the tie as the belief almost visibly drained from the stadium and the famous white shirts of Real Madrid. I attended both legs of this tie in 2006 and the final whistle at Highbury was one of the most visceral moments I can recall as an Arsenal fan.
This time though, I felt comfortable the game was over shortly after the beginning of the second half. I could see that Madrid didn’t believe, I could feel in the stadium that the home crowd knew the game was up. When you watch enough football, you get a feel in the air for when there is belief and when there isn’t and the mighty Bernabeu was reduced to a Mausoleum save for just over 3,000 of us in the Gods determined to dance on Madrid’s grave.
I almost missed the anxiety, the tension and the anticipation. Arsenal had almost won it too well. Martinelli’s stoppage time strike gave us another ‘limbs’ moment as the home fans who hadn’t already hastily made for the exits. Outside in the concourse, where police held us for just under an hour after the final whistle, the strains of Martinelli’s new chant- to the tune of Italian anti-fascist protest song Bella Ciao-began to hang in the air to the beat of the Ashburton Army drum.
This was a consummate two legged victory, as convincing as any you will see in a Champions League quarter-final. This was just business and its businesslike nature was yet another vindication for the multifaceted team that Mikel Arteta has built, a team that does pretty much everything well.
As Luton manager Rob Edwards opined a year ago, ‘they can play any game. If it’s a physical game, if it’s a footballing game, if it’s a running game – whatever it is, they’ve got the answer, they’ve got the personalities who will play any way.’ In this writer’s opinion, they are an elite striker shy of being elite in just about every respect.
And the manager’s respect for every single facet of the game is exemplified on the pitch by Declan Rice, a player who simply does not have any notable weaknesses. (Maybe his left foot?) As Arsenal fans we spent so long pining for the true successor to Patrick Vieira that we just sort of gave up on the idea that we could ever see such a dominant player in our midfield again and yet…
Imagine if I had told you in August that Arsenal would deservedly thump Real Madrid 5-1 across two legs with Lewis-Skelly at left-back, Jakub Kiwior at centre-half and Mikel Merino upfront. Arteta’s ’no excuses, next man up’ demeanour embellishing his team with the belief that they can control a game at the Bernabeu despite missing so many key players.
The domestic campaign has been pockmarked by frustration, bad luck, injuries and a lack of cutting edge. Yet in Europe, the picture has been very different. The immaculate victory over PSG in September (two more of those please, lads), the shoeings handed out in Lisbon and Eindhoven and the calm dismantlement of the holders across two legs.
Whereas the run to the final in 2006 felt a little like bottled lightening, like injuries had finally forced the manager to take Arsenal’s out of possession game more seriously and the run to the semis in 2009 was punctuated by some reasonably generous draws before being destroyed by United. This run, wherever it ends, if indeed it does end, feels more like a true representation of this team’s level under Mikel Arteta.
It is going to be really difficult to try to get past a vibrant PSG side. Winning this competition is incredibly difficult, there is a reason Arsenal have never done it before. But I feel confident this won’t be the last time that this team and this manager appear at this stage. It doesn’t feel like happenstance or like Arsenal have caught the right wind.
It is true they have won nothing yet and I think Arteta feels the urgency of that. But in a domestic season that has not met expectations (and the expectations were so high for a reason), the Champions League has shown us the true level of this Arsenal team and this Arteta project. This is still a young team with room to improve and bolster through the market. I am really enjoying the journey Mikel Arteta is taking this team and this club on and I hope it is rewarded with the silverware that I think it deserves.
