In what is possibly the biggest night in Emirates Stadium history, we host Atletico Madrid in the second leg of our Champions League semi-final on Tuesday (8pm UK), looking to reach the final for the first time since our home was opened in 2006.
Viktor Gyokeres and Julian Alavrez traded penalties in the Spanish capital six days ago, leaving the door open for either to take their place in the final in Budapest at the end of the month, when only Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain will stand in the way of a first European Cup triumph for both clubs.
Having remained unbeaten in all 13 of our Champions League matches so far this season, including five of six on home soil, Mikel Arteta's men will hope home advantage will pay off, with history - figuratively and literally - on our doorstep.
After a massive summer reshuffle Diego Simeone’s team initially struggled, winning just one of their first five La Liga games. A run of nine wins from the next 10, including a 5-2 demolition of Real Madrid, reignited title ambitions heading into December but they soon slipped away again. They went into last week's first leg with one win from their previous six domestic matches, including a defeat to Real Sociedad in the Copa del Rey final on penalties.
Despite that, they look locked to qualify for next season's Champions League, and with that in mind, Simeone opted to rest the entire starting XI that faced us last week when they travelled to Valencia, including handing debuts to two players. One of those, Iker Luque, opened the scoring before 18-year-old Cubo added a second, leaving them fourth in the table with four games to go.
A 14th-place finish in the Champions League league phase set up a play-off round meeting with Club Brugge, where they advanced 7-4 on aggregate. They then beat Tottenham 7-5 on aggregate to set up an all-Spanish clash with Barca, and after winning 2-0 at the Nou Camp, a 2-1 defeat was enough to progress to the semis for the seventh time, but the first since 2016/17.
0 comments:
Post a Comment