If Arsenal are to win their first Champions League, they first have to get past the competition’s greatest force of nature.
By Ian King
Second in England vs. Second in Spain
Both teams have been having a bit of a domestic wobble recently. Arsenal have only won two of their last six in the Premier League, while Real were somewhat surprisingly beaten at home by struggling Valencia last weekend. In Europe, however, both have shown their strength, with Arsenal destroying PSV 7-1 in Eindhoven in the last round while Real Madrid have already seen off two extremely difficult knockout matches, brushing Manchester City aside with barely a thought in the playoffs and then beating city rival Atlético on penalties in the last round.
History
Somewhat surprisingly, these two clubs have only ever met in Europe once before, and this makes for good omens for Arsenal. In 2006 they won 1-0 at the Bernabéu and then drew the return match 0-0 on the way to their only appearance in a Champions League final. But if we’re talking history, no-one needs much telling about Real’s pedigree. Of the 69 previous iterations of the Champions League and European Cup they’ve won it 15 times. Nice.
Key players
Despite the PSV battering, Arsenal have been struggling a little in front of goal recently. They’ve only scored more than two goals in a Premier League match once since New Year’s Day. But with top scorer Kai Havertz out for the season, where are those goals coming from? Mikel Merino and Bukayo Saka are their joint highest league scorers in the league behind Havertz with six each, but Leandro Trossard’s spritely performance and goal at Goodison on Saturday could mean that he starts and he may be their best chance of ensuring that a lead is taken to Madrid for the second leg. Real were concerned that Kylian Mbappé, Dani Ceballos, Antonio Rüdiger and Vinícius Júnior would miss this match due to suspension, but they escaped with fines after a UEFA investigation into their celebrations against Atlético. That would have been quite a quartet to miss.
Team News
Saka returned to the Arsenal team with no ill effects last weekend and should start again. Otherwise, Gabriel Jesus, Kai Havertz, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Gabriel Magalhães are all long-term absentees for Arsenal, while Riccardo Calafiori is injured and Raheem Sterling is suspended. Aurélien Tchouaméni is suspended for Real while Dani Carvajal and Éder Militão are long-term injuries. Ferland Mendy, Thibaut Courtois and Dani Ceballos all missed the Valencia game but should all return for this.
Prediction
When you play Real Madrid, you’re playing an entire weight of history. That’s the scale of the task ahead of Arsenal in this quarter-final. It’s now been almost twenty years since they reached their only Champions League final, but home advantage will count for something and recent domestic defeats against Real Betis and Valencia have left a little bit of a question mark over this Real team, so I’ll go for a relatively low-key 1-1 draw and all back to the Bernabéu for a tense second leg.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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