by In the end this was the perfect way for Arsenal to win this trophy. Beating the Portuguese team on penalties. This feels like some kind of hazing ritual, some brutal rite of passage, like running up a frozen Munro with a bag full of bricks on your back just to make it more special.
For a team that has been accused, by those who like to accuse, of not being ready to win, of being noisy and flamboyant, there was something about the pace of this Champions League last 16 upset. degree.
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To recreate the experience of watching this game, simply hire 17 men dressed in red, blue and white to stage a relentless 17-man fight on a bouncy castle, as from time sometimes a black man blows a whistle, someone falls over, bout. A cramp ensues, causing members of the home crowd to jump up and shout angry disjointed phrases.
Porto was tough, leathery, tough, refusing to bend or tear. There’s just something amazing about their ability to stop the football. It was an instant waste of time, four minutes gone, fussicking over throws. It was a beautiful moment as Pepe, who is 41 and has played almost 900 professional football games to date, faced two Arsenal players like a teenage ice-dancing champion as he dashed to the turf in search of a way out, except. be awakened by the referee through an angry levitational gesture.
At the end of 90 minutes and the tie all square this still felt like Porto’s timeline, Porto’s happy place. Socks rolled down. Opponents cramping. Huddles, urgent team talks, broken rhythms, everyone already thinking about penalties, victory, disaster, moments of nerves and vulnerability. Come into our place. We have been expecting you.
At that point, something else happened. Even a moment felt the civic victory. Arsenal’s fourth was Declan Rice’s free kick, they had already conceded one. He ran in with such verve he looked for a moment as if he was going to charge the keeper. Galeno didn’t stand a chance. David Raya had his kick saved.
And this is a great time in many ways for this team as they contemplate an 18-day break. A win takes the heat out of Arsenal’s season. It feels lighter trying to win the league, less weight, another step rather than a complete leap or anything. The winter sun holiday seems to have put a kind of magic dust over a tired group, the sight of Mikel Arteta being fed over-seasoned meat by the great Salt Bae in an Abu Dhabi restaurant acting as a kind of breath of life, re-baptism. Since that moment, Arsenal have won eight consecutive league games, the spark, the skewer proffered, the jaw dropping, and they have reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the first time in 15 years.
Whatever happens from here, this is progress. Arsenal are better than last year. Players are improving. Income is up. There is style. Goals are being scored.
Arteta was exceptional at reconfiguring players. Ben White, Declan Rice, Kai Havertz have found new equipment. There are footballers in this team who are achieving great things, and not just young players, where the project is linear, clear, less complicated. Is Jorginho set to be the key transformative component in a title-challenging midfield in 2024? Perhaps, but it is not necessary for this to happen.
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There was also time for a moment of beauty here. Still 1-0 down in the final and half time was fast approaching Arsenal had one of their big ticket players to step up. Martin Ødegaard took the moment. It was a brilliant piece of skill to score the only goal of the game, Ødegaard taking four touches in the space of a second and a half, one with his right, three with his left, all different angles and weights, parts different for him.
In the midst of all the mud and fury, two hours into a tie in which Arsenal had yet to score, this felt a bit like watching Ødegaard’s brain whirr in real time, moving the mat around the board, at carried over, transferring x for y, and also taking time out and the cogs whirred, half a beat, just enough to let Leandro Trossard start to run, pulling the ball out but enough space with his third contact, to let for the fourth, a perfect pass into Trossard’s. footpath. The finish was also a thing of beauty, the ball eased into the far corner through Pepe’s feet.
Ødegaard kept twisting and turning in those brutal spaces between the lines, worrying, checking back, always looking for angles and lines of sight. Still the same things kept happening, the same patterns playing themselves out, an entire second half that felt like being fed through a heavy gravity chamber.
Arsenal were expected to win here. Porto is broke. They lost £40m last year. This is not even a good Porto. They are third in the league, they couldn’t win away from home. But they showed great resilience, spikiness and destructive defense.
