If the “magic moments”, as Mikel Arteta put it, didn’t make it clear, two images revealed the scale of Arsenal’s 3-0 victory over Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals. One was the scene in the dressing room, where staff congratulating the players could barely be heard over the noise. It was raucous.
When Declan Rice came in with his man-of-the-match award, he was laughing about how Nicolas Jover told him to cross his first free kick. A few yards away, Carlo Ancelotti could barely be heard for very different reasons. The Real Madrid manager’s voice was unusually low for his post-match press conference, which didn’t last long. Ancelotti has rarely been so subdued.
That was ultimately because of another message relayed by Arteta, that was heard loud and clear.
That was to “make it happen”. The Arsenal manager repeated those words three times after the game, and he’d said them a lot beforehand.
They got through. Arsenal displayed all of the conviction that Arteta has sought to instil into this team over five years. There are times when the Basque can sound absurd as he talks about positivity even after dismal setbacks, but results like this are the point. This is why he didn’t sign a forward who he didn’t think had the right personality for the squad. It is about conditioning performances like this, where all doubt and hesitation are gone. Everyone is of a singular mindset.
Arteta was proud of what that represented, especially as regards his will to “continue to make steps”.
His team have taken a leap forwards.
In the build-up to last year’s quarter-final against Bayern Munich, the staff could sense a “nervous tension” within the squad. It was the first time the club had been involved in a game of that magnitude for seven years. The feeling was that they weren’t quite psychologically ready. There was too much of a hang-up about “the Bayern badge”, and the name. They lost that tie much more meekly than they should have.
As Arteta mentioned on Monday, though, that Bayern quarter-final was essential in terms of going through these experiences. It meant that, by the time this Madrid game came around, there was none of that nervous tension.
By contrast, many of the staff noted a striking confidence within the team. It undeniably helped that Arteta had spent a lot of time deconstructing Madrid, ensuring that the players saw them as the flawed champions they are, rather than just this “aura”.
There was more to it, though.
Arteta had made a specific point of stating that Arsenal had beaten City and Liverpool in the last two years, so there should have been no concern about the level. It was just about taking that next step.
“My feeling was that the team was super convinced and we had the trust that we could do it,” Arteta said.
Rice’s first goal was as symbolic as it was significant. With the game still in the balance but Arsenal beginning to feel it was tilting their way, they won a 56th-minute free kick in a promising position.
The frequently-referenced Jover has obviously done a lot of analysis on the numbers behind such situations, and was urging Rice to cross it. How couldn’t he when the team hadn’t scored a direct free kick since September 2021, and Rice had never scored one in his senior career? It was the logical choice.
What often makes the difference in displays like this, however, is that you have to go beyond logic. You have to “make it happen”, as Arteta would say, to go to levels you’re not expected to.
So, as Rice increasingly fancied it, Bukayo Saka helped make up his mind.
“If you feel it, go for it,” the winger said.
Rice did exactly that. So he made it happen, in spectacular fashion.
Just 14 minutes later, Rice was up again in a similar position. He was now brimming with confidence, and the execution was even better this time.
If the first got you purring for how it was whipped around the wall, this got you off your feet for how it just soared right into the top corner. It was dispatched in Lionel Messi-like fashion.
The next five minutes, then, were up there with anything the great Barcelona teams subjected Madrid to. It was an almost perfect period of play, as Ancelotti’s side just couldn’t get out of their area.
Something had to give. The delivery of Rice’s goals ensured there would not be as much attention on Mikel Merino’s goal, but it was a finish of the highest quality. To drive it into the corner with such controlled power was reflective of how Arsenal overwhelmed Madrid.
Individual brilliance aside, much of the credit for the victory must go to Arteta for his preparation and his tactical nous.
One of the key messages that Arsenal worked on before the game was to minimise mistakes, especially in midfield. That’s because Madrid’s best ability is to suddenly swarm you in the centre and then release the fastest attack in football. There were enough warnings in the first half, as Jude Bellingham was hustling for the ball in the centre only for Vinicius Junior or Kylian Mbappe to be bearing down on goal seconds later.
Far from allowing any doubt to seep in from such breaks, however, Arsenal rallied. Arteta made a few crucial tweaks, and such transitions stopped. Saka began to run David Alaba ragged, as Myles Lewis-Skelly was everywhere.
There was another crucial element, though. Madrid’s midfield just couldn’t move in the way Arsenal’s could.
Brilliant as Luka Modric has been over a two-decade career, he looked his age here and just couldn’t match Rice or Thomas Partey for energy.
Even early in that second half, Arteta kept telling his players to move the ball from “side to side”. He saw that Madrid were becoming increasingly exhausted. The Arsenal players also sensed a frustration. A few were aggravated with Bellingham for how he seemed to go in with some challenges.
Arsenal responded in the best way they could: to keep going.
Arteta’s staff had noted Madrid’s fatigue from the last three domestic games, where they had conceded eight goals. Arsenal made it three more, in a manner that few had imagined possible in the Champions League.
“But then it was the theme of the game,” Arteta beamed. “Make it happen.”
You would ordinarily say they have now made the club’s third-ever Champions League semi-final, except for some huge caveats.
This is Madrid. This is the Champions League. This will be the Bernabeu. If any club can make a comeback like this happen, it’s them.
There will be all sorts of talk in the build-up to the second leg about 2022 and “the spirit of Juanito”, the club legend who was at the centre of Madrid’s most historic European comebacks. Belief is never going to be more important.
To manage that, though, Ancelotti is going to have to come up with an entirely new gameplan. The Italian’s staff were blown away by how well coached Arsenal were, with Ancelotti admitting his preparation for the first leg had to be “thrown in the bin”.
By contrast, Arsenal have a victory that can be shown in their museum, probably their greatest-ever European win. But that relies on them finishing the job.
They just have to make that happen.
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