If you were picking a team to rustle up something magical on a Champions League night, you would deck them out in Real Madrid’s colors. Something happens to the other team when they rock up to the Santiago Bernabeu on a big European night. Carlo Ancelotti put it best amid the post-match recriminations on Tuesday.
“In football, anything can happen. A lot of times, something happens in the Bernabeu,” he said.
Immaculate vibes and a rich history, they’re nice things to have on the biggest occasions. What they are not a patch on, however, is a team that can overturn a three-goal deficit to the best defense in Europe.
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Starting with the most obvious part of the task, did this really look like a team capable of scoring three times at the Emirates Stadium? Nine shots for half an expected goal (xG) would suggest otherwise. Mistakes from Jakub Kiwior and Bukayo Saka handed the visitors threatening moments early on. A moment of exceptional quality down the left by Jude Bellingham handed Kylian Mbappe his best chance of the night, bent too close to David Raya. Once Arsenal cut out the sloppiness of the first half hour, Madrid found themselves driving into a William Saliba-shaped brick wall.
His teammates were equally robust. The starting point for Arsenal’s defensive excellence is quite straightforward: excellent defenders. Jurrien Timber proved himself to be a tyro one-on-one with Vinicius Junior and what Myles Lewis-Skelly lacks in experience, he makes up for in preternatural anticipation for where a game might go. Rodrygo got no quarter from them.
Between the young left back and Saliba was Jakub Kiwior, who promised to be the obvious weak link stepping in for Gabriel. Instead, he proved himself to be what he has always been, a defender of real talent who will need reps to look his best self. “After the game I felt really good,” the Poland international said. “You know that after a game like that, there’s no other way, you just feel really good, but I still feel like it’s not over yet. The most difficult thing is still ahead of us. I’m still cool-headed.”
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His sentiments will be shared by the rest of the Arsenal side come Wednesday night. Scarred by the “banter years” and reflecting the manager who joined as a player with a mission of ending those days, this is a remorselessly serious outfit. They do not shrug off the concession of goals and will make it relentlessly hard for Madrid to get shots up. When they don’t have the ball, their shape is flawless, leading Fulham’s Sander Berge to note earlier this month that it was “as if someone is sitting up in row 50 remote-controlling them”.
More often than not however, it is possession that is their most effective defensive weapon. They attack only when their rest defense is set. One team in the Premier League has given up fewer counter-attacking shots than Mikel Arteta’s. That is all the more impressive given the extent to which they commit to pushing bodies up high when they’re building attacks.
You have to go back to December 2023 and a 4-3 win against Luton for the last time the Gunners conceded three goals. It is coming up to two years since they were beaten by the three-goal margin that Arsenal need to take this tie to extra time.
Brentford might have got away with a draw on Saturday but having seen his side held to three shots and 0.24 xG their manager can attest to how tough a nut Arsenal are to crack. “One thing, looking from the outside, Arsenal work hard,” said Thomas Frank. “They’re very good defensively, they’re very good on defensive set pieces. So, I think they will be fine.”
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To which the response might be, well, it is one thing to hold Fulham and Brentford to one goal but Madrid are a step up on the second and third best teams in London. True, though that much was not immediately apparent in the first leg. Doubtless it will change now there is work to do. Less of Bellingham’s will revolve around marking Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka, more getting close to Mbappe and Vinicius Junior. The same will be true of Rodrygo, who spent an hour plus at the Emirates shielding Federico Valverde. This will have to be an all-out attack from minute one.
Given the talent you could believe that would go some way to getting the three-plus goals required. What happens, however, when Arsenal get through a press that has tended to the diffident on the rare occasions it is actually deployed? Opponents tend not to allow Declan Rice the chance to get in transition. The reason why was apparent on Saturday.
Then there is the prospect of Saka and Odegaard getting open space to attack or of Vinicius failing to track back and leaving David Alaba isolated against one of the sport’s most devastating two-man games. Gabriel Martinelli on the other flank is another who rarely gets to run in open field precisely because he looks so dangerous when he does.
Playing their normal game, Madrid have one clean sheet to their name in their last 10 matches, that coming as their 10 men scrapped by Alaves at the weekend. Opponents have had 10-plus shots in 15 of their last 17 games. Over the course of the season, Ancelotti’s side have allowed well over an expected goal per game across all competitions, and at the highest level of the Champions League, that number is up to 1.4 xG with their only clean sheet coming against a Brest side with little to play for. Wracked by injuries, their defense is there to be got at.
It might have taken two brilliant Rice free kicks to swing the tie Arsenal’s way, but from open play, more chances came the hosts’ way than their opposition, a half-fit Saka finding it all too easy to burst towards the byline and cut back from there. That was against a Madrid team who seemed intent on keeping it tight with an eye to winning the tie at the Bernabeu next week.
That backfired to a quite spectacular extent. No one associated with Arsenal would allow themselves to believe their task is done as they head to the Spanish capital, but if their opponent weren’t lining up in the white of the 15-time European champions, would anyone be giving them a prayer? On the basis of their first-leg performance, the Madridian aura might be the most powerful weapon available to Ancelotti. It won’t be enough.
