Arsenal is the first team to punch a ticket to this year’s Champions League Final after a suffocating 1-0 win over Atlético Madrid at the Emirates — a match which should be favored to play out in the same rough and tumble manner.
The Gunners jumped ahead in the aggregate scoreline through Bukayo Saka at the halfway point in one of only two attempts and target. From there, they successfully denied the visitors any semblance of coherent chances, save for the odd scare or two in transition, to close
out the game. By the end, a visibly frustrated Diego Simeone had earned himself a yellow card complaining about calls while fruitlessly urging his team forward; his counterpart Mikel Arteta got one himself but only for cheekily getting in the way of a restart.
It’s a convincing if non-aesthetic result for the Premier League giants, who are still embroiled in a ferocious title battle with Manchester City that is set to go down to the wire.
While the North London side has stumbled domestically at times, including a loss to Manchester City in April, this match — which began on level terms — was a preview of what Arsenal has to offer in a one-off championship match. Arteta’s men were brutal, pragmatic, always a threat on set pieces, and incredibly annoying to chase a game against. This is a team that can lock it down with the best of them, if given the opportunity to do so.
However, it is also one that has to work to get on the scoreboard, with creative and clinical finishing questions up front. Both strikers come with question marks. Today, Viktor Gyökeres showed his best in workrate and physicality to help Arsenal close out the game, but did not exactly bring his shooting boots. Kai Havertz’s injury-riddled season continues to pose more questions than answers, though he seems important to Arteta’s gameplan when fully fit.
Whichever team makes it to Budapest to join Arsenal will hope to get the jump early and keep the game open, and maybe too that the title race will take more out of the Gunners in the coming weeks.
Tomorrow, we will find out if the challenger is to be Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain.
If you are looking for more Bayern Munich and German national team coverage, check out the latest episodes of Bavarian Podcast Works, which you can get on Acast, Spotify, Apple, or any leading podcast distributor…
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