{"id":547793,"date":"2026-03-18T06:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/547793\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T06:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:14:15","slug":"eze-keeps-arsenals-shot-at-history-alive-with-magic-moment-against-leverkusen-champions-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/547793\/","title":{"rendered":"Eze keeps Arsenal\u2019s shot at history alive with magic moment against Leverkusen | Champions League"},"content":{"rendered":"

And now I am become Springtime Eze, destroyer of netting. At what point does a shot at goal become a health and safety violation? There were 36 minutes gone at the Emirates Stadium when Eberechi Eze did the thing.<\/p>\n

How to describe the physical movements that generated Arsenal\u2019s opening goal in this 2-0 defeat of Bayer Leverkusen<\/a>? The shotgun pirouette. The swivel\u2011batter. The cage\u2011ball roundhouse. It was also a pianoforte kind of goal, the power in the finish preceded by a lovely, gentle bit of interplay from Declan Rice and Mart\u00edn Zubimendi.<\/p>\n

From there the ball was fed to Eze in enough space to nudge it gently with his left foot, let it bounce, rotate towards the target, then reach up and strike the ball at the top of the bounce with sudden and startling power. The contact was thrillingly sweet, right in the hard part, the top of the foot, following through the ball and sending it back towards the near corner. Even in that microsecond, the ball seemed to be moving too fast, an error in frame-speed, before zinging perfectly into the top corner. The net seemed to groan, yanked up on its strings like a tent being blown away in a storm. There was a delayed bark of outrage from the crowd, then a rolling roar as Arsenal<\/a> players leapt about, eyes boggling.<\/p>\n

Eze\u2019s celebration was amusingly cold, a stroll and a sombre look, poker-faced.<\/p>\n

Does anyone hit a ball as hard from open play? It\u2019s the timing, the contact, the basic technique. It\u2019s also a basic sense of show and verve. Eze enjoyed doing this, so much so it felt almost gratuitous, a little shocking, a Peep Show football meme made flesh. Do you have to kick it so hard? There really is no need to kick the ball that hard.<\/p>\n

But it is also significant in the way it arrived. This Arsenal does need players who can produce moments. The rest of it, control, cover, chemistry, teamwork, detail. Yeah, we\u2019re fine on that front. This is why Eze was signed, even if the moments to this point have been a little isolated<\/a>. But then, it is also spring now, and this is where Eze blooms. Just over half of his club goals have been scored in March, April and May. He\u2019s a daffodil, a tender stem thrusting up through the mulch. Maybe there is logic to this. Eze thrives when the play is broken. Perhaps this style works better against teams in late-season states of disorder and fatigue.<\/p>\n

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta can now look forward to the quarter-finals next month against Sporting. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Either way the goals have begun to come. Can he do to Europe what he did to the FA Cup last year? Who knows. Eze\u2019s a guest at this level, a first timer. But his talent, his creative power is undeniably elite, Arsenal will now have the chance to find out.<\/p>\n

The Emirates Stadium was a mild, fizzy, hopeful place at kick\u2011off, even if Arsenal started in a cautious neutral gear. It took 15 minutes for the first slow squeeze of the trigger, the first spell of pressure. By the half\u2011hour they looked like a team in pre-goal mode. There was even an early outbreak of mild, containable Dowmania as the No 56 went for a brief jog down the touchline. He wasn\u2019t needed here. Arsenal found their edge in a more conventional place, edge with GSCEs, edge past the voting edge.<\/p>\n

There were two significant elements to Eze\u2019s moment, and to the win that followed, capped by Rice\u2019s excellent second goal. First, a quarter-final spot means Arsenal are now 16 games from the quadruple. This will be unwelcome talk. But even getting to this point is a rare achievement. Sporting Lisbon in the next round will be tough opponents. Can they find that edge enough times from here?<\/p>\n

There is a theory out there Arsenal will now experience The Freeing Up. The dam has burst. We\u2019re flying on joy juice now, baby. Where we\u2019re going we don\u2019t need a road. Perhaps the high craft in both goals here will advance this idea further. Is it a good idea to open up now? Things seemed to be going along OK in the massively disciplined tactical straitjacket. Maybe think about flying without wings a bit later? Once it\u2019s all in the bag? Control with just enough edge. This is the essential nature of this team, its best side.<\/p>\n

Eze, the occasional genius, fits the model. He is a funny addition in many ways, the most literal-minded control-merchant\u2019s idea of adding creativity. Need some free spirit in there? Let\u2019s sign the most overtly free-spirited player in the league. But it makes sense, too. Arsenal don\u2019t need that many more moments from here.<\/p>\n

Springtime for Eze and Arsenal, now on four fronts. It will end somewhere, surely. For now it all feels pretty wide open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And now I am become Springtime Eze, destroyer of netting. At what point does a shot at goal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-547793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}