Mikel Arteta spoke of his heartache after a skied penalty from Gabriel Magalhães in the shootout against Paris Saint-Germain ended Arsenal’s hopes of being crowned European champions for the first time, but emphasised the need to take that pain “and turn it into fuel”.
Kai Havertz’s early strike and a defensive masterclass in the first half of the Champions League final that frustrated the holders had Arsenal supporters dreaming of a double after their first Premier League title for 22 years. But PSG hit back in the second half through Ousmane Dembélé from the spot before Arsenal thought they should have had a penalty of their own at the end of the first half of extra time.
Arteta was booked for his protests after Noni Madueke tangled with Nuno Mendes. He then watched David Raya pull off a brilliant save from Mendes in the shootout after Eberechi Eze had put his spot-kick wide. It came down to Arsenal’s fifth penalty from Gabriel and the Brazilian was inconsolable after sending his effort over the bar.
“Pain, that’s it,” said Arteta when asked to sum up his emotions. “When you are so close in the competition, and you are a few penalties away from winning the biggest club competition, that’s the way we should feel.”
He added: “First of all you have to go through that pain, digest it, and turn it into fuel. To improve and to reach a different level, because it would demand a different level with the quality around Europe. I want to congratulate PSG because they are in my opinion the best team in the world.”
Luis Enrique’s side have become only the ninth club in the competition’s history to retain their title and only the second in the Champions League era. But Arteta was disappointed that the German referee, Daniel Siebert, decided against awarding a penalty when Madueke went down in the area under pressure from Mendes.
“I watched all the penalties in the competition in the last 72 hours, but that easily can be a penalty,” he said. “It is not what happened and that’s it. We will have to improve to try and get a different outcome. I will take a few days with my family and then we will start the process to review what we’ve done and decide to make some very important decisions if we want to reach another level.”
Declan Rice admitted coming so close was a difficult pill to swallow but backed Arsenal to bounce back. “We will try to take some perspective from how far we have come as a group,” the England midfielder said. “Some of the best teams ever have lost on penalties in finals. It’s cruel, but that’s football. The manager has told us how much he loves us as a group. This is only the start for us.”
Luis Enrique, who started with the same outfield players who defeated Inter 5-0 in last year’s final and has now won the Champions League three times, paid tribute to Arsenal’s defensive efforts.
“Maybe today both teams deserved to win, but the way we played the whole season, I think we deserve it,” he said. “We are used to attacking [against a low block] but they are strong physically, they know how to defend and it was very tough. We’ll try to do it again next year. Why not?”
