Arsenal return to Champions League semis after Sporting stalemate
THAT WILL DO: Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus gets around Sporting Lisbon's Ousmane Diomande. Pic: Nick Potts/PA Wire.
Mission accomplished for Mikel Arteta’s men as a dogged display was enough to see off the Portuguese champions and earn his embattled Arsenal side a Champions League semi-final place against Spain’s Atletico Madrid.
For two seasons running, they are now only one tie away from reaching the final of Europe’s elite competition for only the second time in the club’s history.
Paris Saint-Germain did for them last time. They are better placed to go all the way in 2026.
Make no mistake, Arteta and his players needed to come out fighting and go through after Kai Havertz’s first-leg winner.
Recent cup defeats by Premier League title rivals Manchester City and Southampton were followed by a potentially debilitating weekend loss at home to Bournemouth.
There is little margin for the Arsenal manager domestically and this was all or nothing for their European aspirations in a tense quarter-final second leg clash.
Another draw or better at City’s Etihad Stadium on Sunday and Arsenal can dream about two trophies again this season.
They can but dream and it is still theirs for the taking.
The hyped-up home fans displayed a tremendous tifo as the teams came out, proclaiming ‘History in our sights’ below the images of five players roaring defiance and motivation to a packed Arsenal stadium.
They knew Arsenal and Arteta’s critics were poised to pounce and write off their trophy hopes for a sixth successive season should they falter.
Many of them, and that includes the more jaded of Arsenal fans too, came here fearing their Premier League title hopes are all but over following their weekend home defeat by Bournemouth. There was no margin for error, therefore, in the one major tournament this storied club has never won in its 140-year history.
Sporting forward Luis Suarez (not that one) briefly silenced them after Arsenal’s bright, positive start faded like the cloud cover of this relatively warm north London night.
Trincao flashed another shot narrowly wide soon after and it took a Viktor Gyokeres effort at the other end to remind the Arsenal players and supporters that their most likely tactics of winning this tie were to score first.
Noni Madueke, operating on the right instead of the perpetually injured Bukayo Saka, looked to have the measure of left back Max Arujo, as he had in the first leg. Fellow England international Eberechi Eze, recalled to the starting line-up after injury, looked Arteta’s most likely attacking threat in the No.10 role.
Arsenal had never lost to Sporting in eight previous meetings, but they had also never reached two consecutive Champions League semi-finals. The pressure to get through was real, but they did not play with anything like the fear that seemed to inhibit them in the league at the weekend.
It helped that the crowd stayed behind them, unlike Saturday, even though they were often outshouted by the massed green and white bank of visiting fans from Lisbon in the away end and their team struggled to create any decent goalscoring chances against a very well-drilled Portuguese defence.
If anything, Sporting should have gone into half-time ahead on the night after Geny Catamo struck a far post volley against a post just before the break. The last kick of the opening 45 was a rising Eze shot over the bar.
The flow of the match was not aided by fussy French referee Francois Letexier, but his approach, typical of this tournament, favoured neither side.
Arsenal had won ten of their 11 Champions League games to get this far, coming into this match, but knew a draw would be enough to take them through to the semi-finals thanks to their first leg win courtesy of a late Kai Havertz winner.
Arteta sent them out early for the start of the second half, before which his players spent a long time in a team huddle, also giving the crowd plenty of time to find its voice and rev up his side on top of his vigorous team talk.
The Arsenal manager waited just ten minutes to try to further boost his side’s hopes by sending on Havertz for a below par Gyokeres, who was unable to raise his levels against his former club.
The impact was instant in that they looked more of a threat as Madueke fired a shot into the side netting, albeit denying Martinelli a better goalscoring chance in the process. Either way, Arsenal were better than they had been before the break, finally dominating a match they were always expected to win.
They had to change tactics soon after when Madueke limped off after being clattered into by Pedro Goncalves and 16-year-old Max Dowman was sent on for his third Champions League appearance on a school night. He might have to start at Manchester City on Sunday as Arteta goes into the business end of the season with key players short of fitness. Neither Saka, Jurrien Timber or Martin Odegaard made the squad, and Mikel Merino seems done for the season.
Arteta was shown a yellow card for betraying his frustrations on the touchline as the referee continued to make his mark and the match neared its tension-filled climax.
With legs tiring, Eze and Martinelli made way for the final ten minutes or so, Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard came on to see the win over the line.
Raya 6, Mosquera 6, Saliba 6, Gabriel 6, Hincapie 6, Zubimendi 6, Rice 6, Eze 7 (Jesus 79, Martinelli 6 (Trossard 79), Madueke 6 (Dowman Gyokeres 5 (Havertz 56).
Rui Silva 6, Morita 6 (Simoes 77), Pedro Gonçalves 6 (Quenda 71), Catamo 7 (Braganca 71), Francisco Trincao 7 (Nel 86), Araujo 6, Goncalo Inacio 6, Diomande 6, Hjulmand 6, Eduardo Quaresma 6 (Vagiannidis 85), Suarez 6.
Francois Letexier 6
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