Report, reaction and analysis
It was a see-saw tie. And if it lacked the beauty of Paris Saint-Germain versus Bayern Munich in the other Champions League semi-final, first-leg from Tuesday night, it still had drama; knife-edge tension.
It was a tale of three penalties, two scored, one by either team; the award of the last one rescinded amid wild scenes. That had stood to give Arsenal the opportunity to take a 2-1 lead to London next Tuesday. In the event, the referee, Danny Makkelie went to the pitchside screen and ruled that David Hancko’s contact on the Arsenal substitute, Eberechi Eze, in the 78th minute was not strong enough.
When it was over and the hearts had stopped hammering, Arsenal could be happy. They had grown into the first-half and one-nil to the Ar-se-nal sounded good when it was belted out by the travelling fans at the interval.
Mikel Arteta: 'Completely unacceptable... against the rules'
After speaking to the boys and watching the penalty incident for the second goal (sic), I’m extremely disappointed and annoyed. It was against the rules, I don’t understand it and it changes the course of the tie. So: very, very upset.
[Did you speak to the referee?] No, but the whole sequence tells a story. There is clear contact. If you make that decision, you cannot overturn that decision. When you have to look at it 13 times… at this level it’s completely unacceptable.
[On the Atletico penalty] They have been consistent so if you’re going to give a penalty for that kind of thing, you have to accept it. I have nothing to say on that, but the one that changes everything is the penalty on Ebs [Eberechi Eze]. That cannot happen at this level.
[On the game in general] We did a lot of very positive things. We are an incredible position – semi-final of the Champions League, we have to play in front of our people, and it is in our hands.
[On their recovery for the weekend] We will make sure the players eat, sleep, get a lot of love and use every hour of the day to be in the best position to compete and win against Fulham.
Updated
Viktor Gyokeres’s reaction
In the first half I think we controlled the game quite well. They started much better in the second half, maybe deserved to get a goal, and overall it was a tough game. It’s only half-time.
I didn’t see their penalty, so it’s difficult to say, but that’s football. I don’t know why they turned [the Eze penalty] down, it looks like there was contact, but it’s their decision.
At home with our fans it’ll be different for sure. We have to do our job and be at our best.
“I make that: 1) never a penalty according to my internal and arbitrary rules and 2) absolutely a penalty under the laws of the game,” writes James Humphries. “In particular, how on earth does it get overturned after VAR?”
Mate, you’ve got some nerve turning up here after promising us 120 minutes.
Updated
Both teams will feel they could have won; both will know, deep down, they could have lost.
Atletico Madrid were the better team overall but had a sizeable stroke of luck when VAR denied Arsenal their second penalty of the night and the third of the match.
In the end there were only two, both put away with feeling by Viktor Gyokeres and Julan Alvarez.
Updated
Full time: Atletico Madrid 1-1 Arsenal
A rugged arm-wrestle, exactly as we expected, will resume at the Emirates next Tuesday.
90+4 min Hancko moves to the edge of the D and touches the ball off to Molina. He cuts across a vicious rising drive that just clears the crossbar, though Raya had it covered.
90+3 min Pugill’s deep cross from the right is headed back across goal by Baeda. The ball just clears the leaping Lookman and is hooked clear.
90 min There will be seven minutes of injury/VAR time.
89 min Rice whips a good effort from distance that bounces a few yards wide. Oblak had it covered, but Arsenal look the likelier scoresrs as we approach injury-time.
88 min: Atletico substitution Nahuel Molina, aka Funky Cole, comes on for Johnny Cardoso.
Updated
87 min Mosquera’s first contribution is a rising drive that is pushed up and away by Oblak. Comfortable save.
86 min: Arsenal substitution Cristhian Mosquera is on for Ben White.
84 min Arsenal didn’t get the penalty but they are having their best spell of the second half. Eze plays a crisp pass into the area to Trossard, whose shot on the turn is well blocked by Pubill.
Updated
81 min: No penalty!
Blimey. I think that’s really harsh on Arsenal, and the TNT Sports commentary team are wondering whether Diego Simeone’s influence was a factor. “In my opinion,” says Ally McCoist, “if that was in the other box it stays a penalty.”
Updated
81 min I don’t think it’s a clear and obvious error – you can make a decent case either way. But when the referee goes to the monitor, it usually means only one thing.
80 min: VAR check! There is an argument that Eze dived, another that he slipped, and another that it’s a penalty. Hancko’s boot certainly caught Eze’s.
Hang on, the referee is going to the monitor.
Updated
That came out of nothing. Saka guided a routine pass into the area towards Eze, who got to the ball a split-second ahead of Hancko and went over. Hancko is booked as well.
Updated
78 min: Penalty to Arsenal!
The third penalty of the night!
Updated
77 min: Atletico substitution Julian Alvarez, who has been in the wars all night, is replaced by Alex Baena.
75 min Two Arsenal players went flying just before the counter-attack that led to Lookman’s chance, so there would have been a few complaints had Lookman scored. Lookman could also have gone down in the area after a clumsy challenge from White.
74 min: Great chance for Lookman!
Atletico should be ahead. Llorente’s low ball from the right was controlled beautifully by Lookman, who beat White in the process, but then he shot straight at David Raya from 12 yards.
71 min This would be a superb result for Arsenal, however fraught the second half has been. Big 20 minutes coming up klaxon.
69 min The substitute Trossard loses the ball in a dangerous area. Alvarez finds Griezmann, whose early ball towards Lookman is well cut out by Saliba.
68 min: Triple substitution for Arsenal With Arsenal unable to get out in the second half, Mikel Arteta has changed his entire forward line. Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard are on for Gyokeres, Madueke and Martinelli.
64 min Alvarez tries to score direct from a corner, forcing Raya to scramble back and push the ball over the bar. Atletico have been too hot for Arsenal to handle in the second half.
The follow-up corner leads to a cross from Griezmann, a header across goal and a volley into orbit from Lookman. Tough chance.
63 min: Griezmann hits the bar!
Ruggeri’s cross is controlled by Lookman just inside the area. He guides a short square pass to Griezmann, who is falling backwards when he floats a beautiful effort that beats Raya and hits the bar. Arsenal can’t clear and moments later – seconds later – Griezmann hits a sizzling volley that deflects not far far.
Updated
62 min Alvarez is fine.
61 min Alvarez is down after being caught by Rice. The break in play might be good for Arsenal, who are in danger of being overwhelmed.
59 min I’ve no idea how Diego Simeone addressed his team at half-time. Raw steak? Cattle prod? Whatever he did has worked because it’s been a completely different game.
57 min: Arsenal substitution Eberechi Eze is on for Martin Odegaard.
GOAL! Atletico 1-1 Arsenal (Alvarez 56 pen)
Julian Alvarez whips a fierce penalty into the left corner of the net. David Raya stood still – one of the backroom staff spoke to him before the penalty – but I doubt he’d have saved it anyway.
Updated
55 min: Penalty to Atletico!
The referee goes to the monitor and gives the penalty. Llorente’s shot was going miles wide as well, not that it matters.
Updated
54 min The resulting corner was pinged to Llorente on the edge of the area. His shot bounced up and hit the hand of White – he knew nothing about it but his arm was well away from his body, and we all know what that means in the modern game.
Updated
54 min This is going to be a penalty for Atletico…
Updated
53 min: Double chance for Atletico!
Oblak’s long kick is touched off deftly by Griezmann to Alvarez. He puts Lookman through on goal, and his shot – too close to the keeper – is beaten away by Raya. Griezmann’s follow-up hits the elbow of Gabriel, wrapped tight to his side, and flies over the bar.
Updated
49 min: Just wide from Alvarez! The resulting free-kick is curled extravagantly over the wall and into the side netting by Alvarez. It was a brilliant effort, though the diving Raya may have had it covered. Plenty of home fans thought it was in when they saw the net ripple.
Updated
48 min Atletico have started the second half with greater intensity. Cardozo is fouled 25 yards from goal by Gyokeres, a very similar challenge to the one that led to Arsenal’s penalty.
Updated
46 min Arsenal get the second half under way, and why not.
Half-time substitution Atletico have brought on Robin Le Normand for Giuliano Simeone. Marcos Llortente has moved to the right of midfield.
Updated
Half-time reading
Half time: Atletico Madrid 0-1 Arsenal
It’s 1-0 to the Arsenal thanks to Viktor Gyokeres’s 19th goal of the season. They were nervous for the first few minutes but once they got going they dictated the tempo of an unsurprisingly hard-fought game. Atletico have work to do.
45 min At first I thought Gyokeres’s penalty was right in the corner. Replays show it was potentially saveable, as it went between Oblak’s arms and into the net. That said, Gyokeres hit it with punishing force.
GOAL! Atletico 0-1 Arsenal (Gyokeres 44 pen)
Viktor Gyokeres smashes the penalty into the net! Jan Oblak went the right way, to his right, but was beaten for pace.
Updated
44 min Atletico are fuming. It wasn’t a stonewall penalty, but there was a decent amount of contact and it was never going to be overturned.
42 min: Penalty to Arsenal!
Zubimendi plays a give-and-go with Odegaard before guiding a nice ball into Gyokere in the area. He takes a touch and is about to shoot when Hancko runs into him from behind. Gyokeres goes over and the penalty is given.
Updated
42 min Atletico break through Simeone on the right. His cross is cut out by Gabriel and collected by Alvarez, who is importantly dispossessed on the edge of the area by Rice. Good defending.
40 min Alvarez’s shot in the 14th minute remains the only effort on target. Martinelli tries to change that with a speculative curler from the left edge of the area; Llorente heads it away.
38 min “At this stage in last night’s game we already had forty-nine goals,” writes Peadar de Búrca. “And look, there’s more to the beautiful game than multiple goalgasms, but what I’m finding it hard to live without is the visual appeal of Kvaratskhelia’s frictionless hip-to-shoulder swagger. Is this how Elizabeth Bennet felt when Mr Darcy pulled on his socks and shorts and scored a hattrick for the Herfordshire Harriers?”
I’m afraid I don’t understand that reference. Could you translate it into Dawson’s Creek.
36 min Alvarez nicks a pass out of defence from Arsenal and has a shot blocked. Atletico are definitely setting traps for the Arsenal back four/five.
35 min “I know you can’t pick and choose these things,” begins Ben Watson, “but to me it feels like the Premier League might not come around for Arsenal again if they don’t win it this year, whereas a bit of form in the latter stages can always lead to a Champs League (final / win).
“So while beating either Munich or PSG in a final would be a real achievement, Arsenal really need to win the league this year. Amiright?”
Aye, were I an Arsenal fan I think I’d want the Premier League more, counter-intuirive as it sounds.
34 min It feels like this first half is being played on Arsenal’s terms rather than Atletico’s. It’s still an even game but the slow-slowwww-quick tempo is more to Arsenal’s liking.
30 min: Just wide from Madueke!
Rice wins the ball superbly in the Atletico half and finds Odegaard. He touches it off to Madueke, who marches infield and flashes a curling shot from 25 yards with his left foot. Oblak dives to his right and the the ball goes just wide.
Updated
29 min Ruggeri’s cross is headed over from 12 yards by Alvarez, an imaginative effort but a very tough chance.
26 min Arsenal will be really pleased with how quiet they have kept the great Antoine Griezmann. There has been a bit more threat from Julian Alvarez, but nothing you wouldn’t expect in a game like this.
24 min Arsenal’s first corner of the night is a load of nonsense, underhit by Madueke and headed away by Griezmann.
21 min A bit of a quiet period. Gyokeres has a bit of a nose bleed after being caught, possibly by Madueke, while scrapping for a cross from the left.
Updated
17 min “I’m too stressed out to actually answer your Premier League/Champions League question, and we’re less than 20 minutes hour into this match,” writes Russell Eberts. “I mostly just want this season to be over, so I don’t have to watch Arsenal again for a few months. This season has felt like being in a relationship with someone who’s emotionally manipulative, and has been about as fun as watching someone get their teeth cleaned.”
15 min: Fine defending by Carodoso! Gyokeres barrels irresistibly down the left, holds off Llorente and arrows a cutback towards the onrushing Odegaard. His shot from about 10 yards is crucially blocked by the stretching Cardoso.
14 min: Good save by Raya! Julian Alvarez controls a sharp square pass on the edge of the area, works a tiny bit of space with some lovely footwork and whacks a curler that is pushed round by the diving Raya.
Updated
14 min “I... I may have forgotten which leg this was,” hics James Humphries (see 7.48pm). “In my defence, tell me you don’t look at any Arsenal-Atletico fixture and immediately assume it’s the second leg of a grim/proper football (delete as appropriate) game standing at 0-0.
”Also, as a Motherwell fan I’m not used to a grinding defensive mindset... this season.”
Updated
13 min This already looks like it’s developing into an unyielding arm-wrestle. Both teams have had promising moments in attack, but Hincapie’s volley is the only half-decent chance.
10 min “After last night’s family-sized helping of Haribo, tonight will probably be the quinoa salad that we need but aren’t quite so excited about,” harrumps Andy Gordon.
9 min Arsenal have found their feet and it’s an even, relatively cagey game now.
6 min: Chance for Hincapie! Shrill whistles from the home fans as Arsenal enjoy their first extended spell of possession. Madueke beats two defenders beautifully and stands up a cross to the far post.
The diving Martinelli can’t reach it but his attempt serves to put off Hincapie, who slices a sidefoot volley wide. Not an easy chance, but a chance nonetheless.
Updated
5 min “Champions League,” says Gary Stover. “If you win the Champions League this year, beating Bayern or PSG in the final, you could lay claim to being the best club side ever.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but I agree it would add another layer of glory.
4 min Atleti have made a forceful start and are trying to set traps for Arsenal, who haven’t made an entirely assured start. To prove the point, a routine pass from Gabriel to Hincapie goes straight out of play.
Updated
3 min “I’ll take the league please BRob,” writes Paul Curievici. “Because this season has felt as long as the whole 22-year-drought, because it’s been so bitterly attritional, in the hope that if we finally win the bloody thing we’ll start to look like we enjoy playing football again. And also so my little lad can lord it over the glory-boy City fans at school for a change. Obviously the Champions League wouldn’t be a bad second option.”
2 min A slip from Hincapie allows Atletico to break. Alvarez, 25 yards out, has a shot blocked.
This isn’t the smoothest pitch in world football, as Spurs found out in the last 16, and moments later Raya shanks a clearance out of play.
Updated
1 min A couple of minutes later than advertised, Atletico get the second Champions League semi-final under way.
This is the first Champions League semi-final at the Wanda Metropolitano, and the atmosphere is specfreakintacular. Also: there is toilet roll everywhere.
Updated
“I suspect that Justin Kavanagh’s wish will be met tonight; after the Lord Mayor’s Show/ Last Night of the Proms/NASA moon landing fireworks of last night, pretty well anything will be a comedown,” writes Charles Antaki. “At least one team can be fairly guaranteed to lower the pulse, until, that is, their fans’ feelings about the effectiveness of the MGM start to get the better of them MGM? They’ve been more like Pathé news on previous outings, so some work required there.”
“It’s been an effortful few days,” writes James Humphries, “so I had clean forgot yesterday was PSG v Bayern and only discovered it when I started getting ‘football, bloody hell’ messages.
“Today however has been a day so beautiful I got waylaid in a beer garden on the way home and might end up watching this one – my apologies in advance for the 120 minutes of filth which will no doubt result.”
How do you know there will be half an hour of injury time? And how long have you been in that beer garden?
Mikel Arteta has just WhatsApped his pre-match thoughts
You can’t wait to play these kinds of games – as a club, as a player, as a manager.
[Viktor Gyokeres] is fresh and it’s an opponent that can fit him very, very well. We have options from the bench, though certain players are restricted to playing a certain number of minutes. [Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze] have done really well to be available.
[What have you learned from last year’s semi-final?] Every game is different. Every detail matters; you have to be ruthless in both boxes.
A fun bit of pre-match reading
“It’s 10 years since Saúl Ñíguez scored an amazing solo goal for Atlético against Bayern in their semi-final first leg,” writes Andrew Goudie. “I’ll never get tired of watching this, especially when he beats the last man.”
An entirely straightforward question for Arsenal fans
Premier League or Champions League? And why?
“Right,” says Justin Kavanagh, “let’s have a nice quiet 0-0 draw with top-notch defending and lots of safe, secure sideways passing tonight. My old heart can’t take another evening of racing palpitations and excitations like yesterday’s. And as for Mikel Arteta’s heart rate, well, if he’d been coaching either team last night, I fear for his well-being today.”
Martin Ødegaard has accepted that Arsenal will remain open to criticism until they shed their nearly-men reputation and is confident the club are primed to do precisely that this season.
The captain cut a convincing figure on the eve of Wednesday night’s Champions League semi-final first leg at Atlético Madrid, insisting he and his teammates were ready to respond to the lessons of the past and deliver silverware.
Ødegaard was referring to the Champions League semi-final exit against Paris Saint-Germain last season but he might also have been thinking about the Premier League runners-up finishes in each of the previous three years. Arsenal are top of the table and chasing a first league title since 2004.
“It’s always going to be there until we win and that’s something you have to live with,” Ødegaard said. “We need to take all our experiences and the lessons and use them in a good way. It’s part of football and part of the journey.
Atletico are renowned as a tight, pragmatic side, but their identity has changed a little in the last few years. Their 14 Champions League games this season have produced a whopping 60 goals.
Arsenal’s games have been a lot tighter, particularly at their end. In 12 games they’ve scored 27 and conceded only 5.
The players on a yellow card
Nobody. Yellow cards are wiped going into the semi-finals.
At the beginning of the final training session before their biggest game in a decade, Atlético Madrid’s players lined up by the centre circle at the Metropolitano and waited for their coach to come. Diego Simeone arrived and ran through the middle of them, from Juan Musso and Jan Oblak at one end to Antoine Griezmann and Ademola Lookman at the other. As he passed, head down, they cheered and hit him – if not quite as hard as they do when it’s a player’s turn. Gauntlet run, applause echoed round the empty stadium. Happy birthday, mister.
Simeone turned 56 on Tuesday. He has spent almost 20 of those here: first as the captain who won the double, then the coach who lifted Atlético’s next league title, 18 years on, and now leads them into his fourth and their seventh European Cup semi-final, nine years since the last. What do you get the man who has it all? “Buah! You can’t imagine how good it is to be in the four best teams in Europe,” he said after the quarter-final; “I have no birthday wish,” he said before this semi-final, “just pure gratitude to be able to be with my three sons on my birthday, with my two daughters, my mum, my wife, my lifelong friends.”
One of the sons was hidden in the crowd somewhere, hitting him. The day that Simeone bade farewell to the Vicente Calderón as a player in December 2004, he carried his youngest son, two-year-old Giuliano, in his arms. The days before he came back to Madrid as coach in December 2011, he stopped in a cafe in Mar del Plata and, over a croissant and a glass of milk, asked Giuliano, then eight, what he thought. “You’re going to coach [Radamel] Falcao?!” the kid replied, excitement giving way to reality. “But … if it goes well, you won’t come back.”
It was the night when Arsenal made their first big statement of the season in the Champions League, when they advertised their desire to go all the way in Europe’s most glamorous competition; to create club history. They had welcomed Atlético Madrid in the third round of league phase matches and it turned into a showcase for all of the best bits about Mikel Arteta’s team.
The bolted-door defence. The furious counterpress. The physicality. The speed and ruthlessness. The set-piece productivity. And, linked to everything but trumping the lot, the total self-belief. Arsenal were unable to find a way through in the first half or the early part of the second – it was tight – but they did not panic because they knew the goal would come. It was inevitable. They were inevitable.
When Gabriel Magalhães scored it in the 57th minute, it was the prompt for a devastating salvo, Arsenal raining in three more by the 70th minute. The game finished 4-0, Atlético departing battered and bruised. It was late October and the performance and result were very much of a piece with the Arsenal of the first half of the season.
Team news
Mikel Arteta makes two changes, both in attack, from the nervy Premier League victory over Newcastle on Saturday. Gabriel Martinelli and Viktor Gyokeres, who scored three of the four goals when Arsenal trounced Atletico earlier this season, replace Eberechi Eze and the injured Kai Havertz. It’s the MGM attack – Madueke, Gyokeres, Martinelli – so we’re contractually obliged to link to a lion roaring.
Bukayo Saka isn’t yet to fit to play a full 90 minutes; Riccardo Calafiori joins him on a strong Arsenal bench.
Atletico make four changes from their 3-2 win over Athletic Bilbao at the weekend. Julian Alvarez, David Hancko, Johnny Cardoso and Ademola Lookman come in for Clement Lenglet, Pablo Barrios, Alex Baena and Alexander Sorloth.
Atletico Madrid (4-4-2) Oblak; Llorente, Pubill, Hancko, Ruggeri; Simeone, Cardoso, Koke, Lookman; Griezmann, Alvarez.
Subs: Musso, Esquivel, Sorloth, Mendoza, Baena, Almada, Lenglet, Molina, Vargas, Le Normand, Bonar, Julio Diaz.
Arsenal (4-3-3) Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie; Odegaard, Zubimendi, Rice; Madueke, Gyokeres, Martinelli.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, Setford, Mosquera, Saka, Jesus, Eze, Norgaard, Trossard, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Dowman, Salmon.
Referee Danny Makkelie (Netherlands)
This is the fourth meeting between Atletico and Arsenal. The first two came in the Europa League semi-final of 2017-18, when goals from Antoine Griezmann and Diego Costa put Atleti through 2-1 on aggregate. The other was in the league phase of this season’s competition, when Arsenal ran riot in the second half.
Preamble
History is made! Or rather, it will be at 8pm BST tonight, when Mikel Arteta’s oft-maligned Arsenal play back-to-back Champions League semi-finals for the first time in the club’s history. It’ll count for little if they don’t win either the Premier League or Champions League this season, but it’s an undeniable marker of their progression from the 15th-best team in England to one Europe’s finest.
For the second year in a row, Arsenal’s semi-final involves arguably the two best teams never to win the European Cup or Champions League. Paris Saint-Germain’s glorious triumph last season left a vacancy for Atletico, though they would argue they were already in the top two. After all, no side has played in more Champions League finals without winning the thing. On all three occasions, in 1974, 2014 and 2016, Atleti came agonisingly close.
Either they or Arsenal, who lost their only final to Barcelona 20 years ago, will get another crack in Budapest on 30 May. It should be a fascinating struggle between two teams best known for their defensive excellence. Even if the reality is more nuanced, we’ll have none of that nine-goal nonsense tonight.
Kick off 8pm BST.
Updated
