Match report – – – Video
Phew, we’re through. I was on a knife edge wondering if we’d hang onto our slender first leg lead, but fair play to the lads, they did it!
Mikel Arteta rang the changes for last night’s second leg with PSV, with Ben White, Jakub Kiwior, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Jorginho, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Kieran Tierney and Raheem Sterling all called into the starting XI. It’s just a shame he couldn’t find room for Riccardo Calafiori, otherwise Operation: All The Left Backs would have come to fruition.
We started well enough. Zinchenko picking up a ball Sterling did well enough to win in the opposition half, before driving on and firing home a great effort from just outside the box. He thought about celebrating, then didn’t, too respectful of the … *checks notes* … 652 minutes and 6 starts he made for the Dutch club in … *checks notes* … the 2016-17 season. In terms of the non-celebration celebration, I think he might just be taking it a little too far.
They equalised through Ivan Peresic, a nice finish from the Croatian after some sloppy play in midfield and at the back, while at the other end Lewis-Skelly almost restored the lead but saw his effort come back off the post. Sterling did well down the right hand side, beating his man and putting in a cross, to allow Declan Rice the chance to put us back in front – and he duly obliged with a convincing close range header. Sterling himself could have scored after being put through on the break by Zinchenko but on his left foot he couldn’t apply the finish just before the break.
The second half felt very much like two teams going through the motions. Rice got booked, Calafiori and Leandro Trossard were sent on, PSV scored again after Jorginho got caught on the ball in midfield, and Sterling again had an opportunity but saw the keeper equal to his effort. He was determined to contribute though, and with just seconds of injury time remaining he slid in to make a sliding challenge with his arse that saw him pick up a yellow which means he’s suspended for the first leg of the quarter-final.
Would there be a few minutes for young striker Nathan Butler-Oyedeji? To be fair, it was tight, just the 6 goal margin, so you can understand how the manager might feel a bit insecure. In the end, no. He put on three senior players, I guess hoping one of them might help us get a winner that would have been worth in excess of €1.5 in prize money to the club. He rarely makes emotional decisions, that Mikel Arteta.
So, a draw, and over the two legs – all jokes aside – we were by far the better side and deserved to go through. It was won in Eindhoven, put to bed in London, then all eyes were on Madrid. Afterwards, the manager said:
Overall, I’m very happy because we have the second consecutive season in the Champions League quarter-finals. We have to value that and recognise that it is very difficult to do it. We’ve done it consistently and now we want to make the next step, which is going to be really difficult, but we are very capable of playing.
As soon as our game was over, I switched over to the one between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid which ultimately went to a penalty shoot-out. The main talking point is the fact VAR ruled out Julian Alvarez’s penalty for a double-touch, something which really doesn’t seem at all evident in the video footage.
Atletico Madrid’s disallowed penalty. I slowed it down and still struggle to see the double tap.
If you’re disallowing that, then you really WANT to disallow it. Doesn’t sit right with me.
Pray for Arsenal.
— kimmoFC (@kimmofc.bsky.social) March 12, 2025 at 11:05 PM
He definitely slipped just before he hit it, but I have to say that’s an absurd way to have a penalty in a shoot-out chalked off. If that happened to us, I’d be so unhappy, especially when it is as questionable at this. But when it comes right down to it, Atletico made up for that when Jan Oblak saved from Lucas Vasquez. Then Marcos Llorente, a man who looks like he should be comparing business cards with Christian Bale in American Psycho, cracked his penalty off the bar, before an unconvincing – but successful – effort from Antonio Rudiger saw Real go through.
The focus will be on the controversy, for obvious reasons because it was so bizarre, but it wasn’t all about that. Real Madrid and this competition have an incredible relationship, which must hurt Atletico who – since 2014 – have been beaten by their city rivals in two finals, a semi-final, a quarter-final, and a last 16 game. Imagine the pain of that? That seems cruel and unusual punishment.
Anyway, it sets up an exciting, glamorous quarter-final for us to enjoy. There will be plenty of time to look ahead to those games properly, but the last time we faced Real Madrid in the Champions League was in 2006 when that Thierry Henry goal, and that Cesc Fabregas performance, sent us through to a quarter-final against Juventus. If lightning could strike twice, I’d be well up for being zapped.
For a bit more on last night and the other ties of the Round of 16, we’ll have an Arsecast for you a bit later on, so stick around for that. For now, have a good one.
