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7 hours ago
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Real Madrid’s history has loomed large with its epic comebacks but now it is time for Arsenal to write their own, Mikel Arteta says. For all the noise and the narrative, for all that many have crumbled here against the European champions, the Arsenal manager insisted there is no fear and that his team are ready to step into the Bernabéu.
Arteta reminded everyone of a simple fact lost at times over the past seven days: they do lead this tie, 3‑0. “If I had to pick one of the scenarios that I want the most, it would be this one,” he said.
Asked if there was any fear, the Arsenal manager replied: “No, I wouldn’t use that word.” Instead, he talked of “respect, admiration and values, an inspiration for any team and any manager” and that was how he is framing this game: not as something to be scared of, although he admitted that it would be “impossible” to completely block out the noise, and that the “narrative is fuel for them”, but something to aspire to. This is a night they must enjoy, Arteta said, and one that he would like to play in himself.
It is also a game that he said they must approach as they did the first leg, with the aim not of protecting the three-goal lead they have but of beating Madrid again. They will do so with Ben White and Thomas Partey, who are available, but not Jorginho, who was unable to travel to Spain.
“The feeling is excitement,” Arteta said. “We want to create history. We are trying to do something consistently, to start to dominate European competition. This is a great opportunity. For sure, we are convinced. When you want to create history, build a story, first of all you have to be excited, really prepared and really convinced about what you want to achieve. Then it is about insisting, going step by step.”
If there was a word that has kept coming up over the past week since Arsenal beat Madrid 3-0 at the Emirates Stadium in the first leg of this Champions League quarter‑final, it is remontada, comeback. It was repeated often to Arteta, too. He is aware of the swirl of noise around this game, how the momentum has built over the past seven days, a context created in which even Jude Bellingham called “weird”: it is as if, despite the advantage being Arsenal’s deficit, Madrid will go through. That is about building belief at the Bernabéu; it is also of course about anxiety in their opponents.
“It is part of their history and I understand it,” Arteta said. “They have the right to think of that scenario. Our mindset has to be different. We try to repeat the opposite message to what they have in the last 72 hours. We are close to the players. Hopefully that [message] is more powerful than anything else. But you have to be [out] there, go through it, experience it.”
Asked if Arsenal will look at moments in which Madrid have come back against other teams, Arteta said: “Of course. That’s part of the analysis of an opponent: to understand why it happened. There’s the quality they have, moments of uncertainty. You try to train that, to teach it, so that it doesn’t happen [to you].
“They will try to take the game to a different place to where we want. We have to take the game to where we want and then adapt quickly to any scenario that takes us somewhere else. [The aim is] to win the game. The same as we did in London. We have to dominate things; be brave, be dominant, determined, to have the conviction that we can be better than them and win the game. That is clear in our mind and that is how we have to play tomorrow.”
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It was put to Arteta that surely, given the lead, Arsenal should adapt. Winning the game didn’t matter, after all; winning the tie does. Why try to win? “Because it’s the way we feel most confident,” he replied. “It’s the way we play: to be better than the opponents so that the probability of winning the game is as high as possible. We try to understand what the opponent wants to do. The better we do that, the closer we are to the semi‑finals. The context of the result can’t change that too much because then the game will go somewhere that is not in our interests.”
He continued: “There are physical, technical-tactical and emotional aspects and that emotional aspect is very important. That is very significant and I am reassured by what the team has done all season – in a positive context and in a very difficult context. We are convinced that [we can handle] any situation and we are going to enjoy any game that we face tomorrow.”
The numbers, if not the narrative, are on Arsenal’s side: they have not conceded more than two goals for 79 games. “That convinces me that the team is prepared,” Arteta said. “It has been 172 days or something, but that doesn’t matter now. It is about proving it tomorrow, showing that the team is convinced, ready. And that’s what’s beautiful about football: let’s show it now. Let’s talk on the pitch: that is all that matters.”
