The best images from Budapest and beyond as, after reaching their first Champions League final in 20 years, Arsenal lost out on penalties to the defending champions Paris Saint-Germain
Continue reading...Paris Saint-Germain v Arsenal: PSG win Champions League final on penalties – as it happened
Eberechi Eze and Gabriel missed from the spot to give PSG victory in a gruelling final
“They’ve got a wonderful group of players and a great manager in Mikel Arteta but having come so close three times on the bounce I felt these guys needed it,” Sol Campbell says of Arsenal winning the Premier League for the first time in 22 years since, in 2004, he was the cornerstone of their defence for the Invincibles. His team remained unbeaten throughout that historic league season, but the pressure on his successors has been immense.
“The wait has been so heavy and it was all pent up, building year after year, always coming so close but never getting over the line,” he says. “That’s why you saw such an outpouring of joy and togetherness. It’s been incredible because we’ve been waiting such a long time.”
Continue reading...When Arsenal beat PSG on their way to winning the Cup Winners’ Cup
Arsenal relied on their brilliant defence to see off PSG in the semi-finals and frustrate Parma in the final in 1994
The Cup Winners’ Cup would become a victim of the Champions League’s expansion in the late 1990s, but there could be no questioning the quality of the competition when Arsenal won it in the 1993-94 season. Real Madrid, Ajax, Parma, Torino, Bayer Leverkusen, Benfica and Paris Saint-Germain stood in Arsenal’s way as they tried to win their first European trophy since the Fairs Cup in 1970.
The first round was far from encouraging. Arsenal limped past Danish club Odense 3-2 on aggregate. But the 10-0 demolition of Standard Liège – including a 7-0 win in Belgium – took George Graham’s side into a testing quarter-final against Torino.
Continue reading...My Arsenal devotion began with watching them lose in a South African cinema
As a boy in the apartheid era I saw footage of the Gunners beaten in the 1969 League Cup final – on Saturday I will attend the Champions League showpiece with my son
I fell for Arsenal in the white‑and-black world of apartheid, where television was banned as a tool of communist propaganda and the club of my dreams was 6,000 miles away and mostly invisible to me. So it feels fitting that a surreal love story that began for a small boy in South Africa in 1969 will reach a new peak on Saturday night in eastern Europe. This 65-year-old Arsenal fan and his 25-year-old son, who is just as besotted by the Gunners, will be at the Champions League final in Budapest as we face the dazzling powerhouse of Paris Saint-Germain.
It’s the final game of Arsenal’s tumultuous grind of a season and we are as exhausted as we are still euphoric. We will remember that my last game of this campaign could have been Swindon’s 2-1 home defeat by Chesterfield in League Two. I have had my share of pain with Arsenal; but it would have been a far deeper burden to have spent 57 years supporting Swindon.
Continue reading...‘He was alive – you saw it in his eyes’: inside the years that shaped Mikel Arteta
In the runup to the Champions League final, the Arsenal manager’s first footballing steps in the Basque Country and Barcelona are recalled by those who shared them
The way Santi Cazorla tells it, rolling about laughing, Mikel Arteta may just be the worst person you could ever wish to watch a match with. Which is why he knew his friend would be a coach and why he told him to go away and become one, convinced great things were coming. “When we were injured at Arsenal, we used to meet at home for games, and he would grab the remote and pause it,” Cazorla recalls. “I would say: ‘What are you stopping it for?’ He would say: ‘No, go back, go back,’ rewind it 30 seconds, and then ask: ‘What do you see?’ I would say: ‘I see a paused screen. I don’t see anything!’”
So Arteta would explain. “‘Don’t you think this player is badly positioned? … If he goes a bit deeper, this space opens up … if the pivot goes there, this happens … that line should be deeper …’ I would look at him and think: ‘What’s with this guy?’” Cazorla continues, still cracking up. “He was a coach already. All game, every game: pausing, rewinding. The match is finished and we’re only in the 35th minute. ‘Do you see it?’ ‘Yes, yes, you’re right, now come on, press play.’ But I didn’t see it. I love football, I can watch it all day, but I don’t notice those things. Mikel does. I think it’s a gift.”
Continue reading...Champions League final buildup, World Cup latest, transfer news, and more: football – live
⚽ News and previews before big weekend of football
⚽ Arsenal owners promise to strengthen | Mail John
The aforementioned Qatar played Ireland last night in Dublin, and lost 1-0.
The game was played against the backdrop of mounting controversy over Ireland’s forthcoming Nations League fixtures against Israel, with the game scheduled for October 4 in Dublin a particular focus, and protesters hurled tennis balls bearing the message “stop the game” onto the pitch on several occasions during the first half.
The 22-year will make a shock switch of allegiance from Italy to Australia four years after turning down the opportunity to represent the country of his birth at the tournament in Qatar.
Football Australia is still awaiting confirmation from Fifa that the formalities surrounding Volpato’s change of heart can be completed before Socceroos coach Tony Popovic names his 26-player World Cup squad by 1 June.
Continue reading...Kai Havertz: ‘Just to watch the Champions League final is very special, to play in it is unreal’
Arsenal striker scored the winner in the final five years ago and is determined to make up for being ‘in a bad place’ when injured this season
When Kai Havertz thinks back to the 2021 Champions League final, he can’t help smiling. Chelsea’s surprise victory over Manchester City in Porto still feels like yesterday for the Germany striker.
“It is something I will never forget,” he says. “As a kid I could have never dreamed I would score a goal in the final and win that game. I will always be proud of it. I just try to take that feeling and hopefully it will happen again.”
Continue reading...Arsenal owners promise to strengthen squad even if Champions League is won
Josh Kroenke says there will be no ‘standing still’
Extending Mikel Arteta’s contract the ‘utmost priority’
Josh Kroenke has promised that Arsenal will strengthen their squad even if they are crowned European champions for the first time and said rewarding Mikel Arteta with a new contract is an “utmost priority”.
Arsenal, who face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final in Budapest on Saturday, spent more than £250m last summer on players who helped them win a first Premier League title for 22 years. Kroenke and his father, Stan, the club’s American owners and co-chairs, watched Arsenal at Crystal Palace on Sunday and brought the trophy on to the pitch before it was presented to the captain, Martin Ødegaard. They are expected to be at the final.
Continue reading...Full-backs and midfield balance key to Arsenal hopes of taming PSG’s devastating wings
Jurriën Timber’s likely unavailability means a reshuffle that will affect selections in all areas of the side
It would be easy to look at Saturday’s Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal and see it as a battle of attack versus defence, of beauty against pragmatism, of French elan against English doughtiness, as some sort of tussle for the soul of football. But it would not entirely be true. And where, after all, was the honour at Agincourt? In the vainglorious charges of the dashing French cavalry or the stoic defiance of the British archers arrayed, naked from the waist down, behind their defensive stakes?
On the one hand, the stats look stark. In the Champions League this season, Paris Saint-Germain have averaged 63.4% possession, higher than anybody apart from Barcelona; Arsenal’s figure is 52.6%, the 11th-highest of the 36 sides who made the league stage. PSG’s pass completion has been 89.3% to Arsenal’s 85.7% (third-highest to 14th-highest). PSG have scored 44 goals to Arsenal’s 29. But on the flip side, Arsenal have conceded six goals to PSG’s 22 and won 13.4 aerial duels per game to PSG’s 9.4 (sixth-highest to 29th-highest).
Continue reading...Football Daily | Villa face their toughest test … recovering from their parade in time to face City
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With the Arsenal Fun Boat having finally docked at its destination on Tuesday after a 22-year voyage, attention on Wednesday turned to Aston Villa’s Crazy Train as its passengers alighted in Istanbul. Having passed away last summer, Ozzy Osbourne, whose famous anthem serves as Villa’s walk-on music, was not present to see his team lift Bigger Vase but the ease with which they strolled to victory would certainly have met with his approval. In spanking three goals without reply past Freiberg, Unai Emery’s side ended a trophy drought that stretched back 30 years and for their Spanish manager it marked a fifth success in the competition with three different teams. It is a state of affairs rendered all the more remarkable by the weird quirk that each of them has ‘villa’ in their names.
Regarding songs to play during VAR decisions (Football Daily letters passim) how about Rise by Public Image Ltd, featuring the oft repeated line: ‘I could be wrong I could be right’?” – Adrian Bradshaw.
Why stop with VAR music to fill dead spots in games? Imagine, the next time a player goes down, hearing that memorable opening line from Johnny Cash, “I hear the trainer coming!” What? Oh” – John Nielsen-Gammon.
A doff of the cap to the great Unai Emery, who won the Uefa Emery League yet again last night but also achieved a rare, unprecedented double this season as he also got promotion to Primera Federación, the third tier of Spanish football, in April with Real Union, which he has been the owner of since 2021 (his father and grandfather used to play for them)” – Noble Francis
Re Steve McClaren and his new role at Rotherham (Football Daily passim, full email edition), do you think he thought it was Rotterdam and he got confused by the accent?” – Dan J Levy.
This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
Continue reading...Aston Villa relish echoes of history but Europa League win must serve as stepping stone | Jonathan Wilson
Unai Emery has reconfirmed his status as master of the competition, but will now want to set his sights higher
There are two ways to win a final. You can win it by the odd goal, amid a frenzy of anxiety so the final whistle comes as a relief. Or you can win it as a procession, flexing your superiority, so the final whistle is almost resented for spoiling the fun. For Aston Villa, this was very much the latter. If their fans had dreamed the previous night of how they might win the game, they could barely have come up with something so satisfying and emphatic.
It’s true that Villa have a budget around 2.8 times that of Freiburg, and that they have been strong favourites in almost every game in the Europa League this season. But then in the Premier League they’re often fighting against sides with far greater resources. The poles of European and domestic football may have flipped, but that is not their fault nor, at least for now, their concern. They have not been a successful enough club – at least in the past 100 years – to decline to fully celebrate any trophy that comes their way. A second European success, 44 years after the first, is history.
Continue reading...Freiburg 0-3 Aston Villa: Europa League final – as it happened
Youri Tielemans, Emi Buendía and Morgan Rogers were all on target in Istanbul as Unai Emery’s side outclassed their opponents
Villa have form for goalkeeper woes in European finals. Jimmy Rimmer went into the 1982 European Cup final with a sore neck, having taken a whack in training a couple of days before the match. He lasted nine minutes before giving way to 23-year-old substitute goalie Nigel Spink, who went on to have the match of his life. So all won’t be lost should the worst happen to Martinez …
… though our man on the spot, Ben Fisher, has just reported that “the glove is now back on and he’s practising claiming crosses from coaches and the other goalkeepers.” So panic over, for now at least.
Emi Martinez may have an issue here: Villa’s goalkeeping coach, Javi Garcia, has just spent the past couple of minutes taping one of Martinez’s fingers and now the Argentinian World Cup winner is continuing to warm up with his right goalie glove in his left hand. He looks very mobile, but it doesn’t seem ideal.
Continue reading...‘Prince William called me a Rolls-Royce once’: Ezri Konsa enjoys royal approval at Aston Villa
England defender thanks Prince of Wales for his support
William expected to be in Istanbul for Europa League final
Ezri Konsa has said the Prince of Wales referring to him as a “Rolls-Royce” counts as the greatest compliment of his career and that Aston Villa are grateful for his royal backing. Prince William, arguably Villa’s best-known supporter and a patron of the Football Association, is expected to be in Istanbul for Wednesday’s Europa League final. Villa are seeking their first trophy since the League Cup in 1996 and will face the German side Freiburg in Turkey.
Konsa has opened up on the surreal nature of support from the heir to the throne. William was in the Villa Park directors’ box for Villa’s second-leg 4-0 victory over Nottingham Forest, which cemented Villa’s place in a first major European final since 1982.
Continue reading...Arteta hoping Timber will win fitness race for Champions League final
Arsenal manager weighing up options at right-back
‘We’re going to try to get him available as quickly as possible’
Mikel Arteta is crossing his fingers that Jurriën Timber will have a chance of facing Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final as he weighs up his options at right-back.
Arsenal confirmed on Tuesday that Ben White would miss the rest of the season with a knee injury that is expected to rule him out of the World Cup, although Arteta said the defender must “wait and see” regarding the summer. Timber has not played since Arsenal’s win over Everton on 14 March owing to a groin issue. The Netherlands defender is understood to have been close to returning at the end of last month before experiencing a setback.
Continue reading...Is the Premier League starting to gobble up Uefa’s lower-tier competitions? | Nick Ames
Aston Villa and Crystal Palace’s runs to European finals are historic achievements, but symptomatic of a worrying trend
There will be no doubting Unai Emery’s supremacy in the Europa League if he is reacquainted with the trophy in Istanbul this month. A fifth title would add to the Aston Villa manager’s legend and it would show he can do it with an English club. The latter achievement, though, may be diminished in value. A greater concern lies in the way that Premier League clubs, gradually but discernibly, are dominating Europe’s smaller competitions in a way Uefa surely could never have intended.
Villa will be the eighth English finalists from the last 22 teams to reach the Europa League’s showpiece. Should they win, it would be the first time since the first two years of the Uefa Cup, its predecessor with the same trophy, that sides from England have won the secondary tournament in consecutive seasons. They would build on Tottenham’s haphazard triumph of last May and while neither consistency nor relative excellence should be sniffed at their progress contributes to a concerning broader trend.
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