Arsenal<\/a> shirt \u2013 his 19th goal of a sometimes difficult debut season. His 12 in the Premier League have come almost entirely against opponents in the bottom half of the table, the penalty against Bournemouth the exception. It is a slightly different story in the Champions League. He scored two against Atl\u00e9tico in the league phase plus one against Inter Milan. Now this.<\/p>\nD\u00e1vid Hancko brings down Victor Gy\u00f6keres to give away a penalty just before half-time. Photograph: Julian Finney\/UEFA\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico fought back in the second-half, the excellent Juli\u00e1n Alvarez equalising after another letter of the law penalty decision and they were in the ascendancy when the air suddenly seemed to be sucked out of this atmospheric bowl. The delayed cheer that you heard came from the Arsenal fans and it followed the third penalty award by the Dutch referee, Danny Makkelie. He felt that the hapless Hancko had left something on the Arsenal substitute, Eberechi Eze, who tumbled to the ground.<\/p>\n
It was the 78th minute and the prompt for an extraordinary scene. Makkelie was advised by the video assistant to review his decision on the pitchside monitor and, as he did so over and over again, the whistles from Atl\u00e9tico supporters were ear-splitting. And what about Diego Simeone? The Atl\u00e9tico manager was never going to wait quietly. He implored Makkelie to reverse the decision and, when that happened after the umpteenth replay, the relief of everyone connected to Atl\u00e9tico exploded like a firecracker.<\/p>\n
Simeone\u2019s Arsenal counterpart, Mikel Arteta, raged. The contact was plainly there by Hancko on Eze so how could the penalty be taken away? There was no clear and obvious error so why the overrule? The arguments raged long into the night.<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico might have pinched victory at the very end when Nahuel Molina, on as a substitute, fizzed just over. Arsenal wanted more, their anger with the officials a major theme. But the draw was about right on balance. Atl\u00e9tico were the better team in the second half, creating chances; there were heart-stopping moments for Arsenal. Arteta and his players have the edge ahead of next Tuesday\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
Viktor Gy\u00f6keres smashes home from the penalty spot after he had been brought down to give Arsenal the lead. Photograph: Dan Mullan\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Arteta\u2019s stated aim had been to get on the front foot and dominate and it was a blow to him that Bukayo Saka and Eze were fit enough only to be among the substitutes. Kai Havertz was missing altogether. What Arteta really wanted were periods of possession to draw Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s sting, to cool the passions in the stands, and he got more and more of that as the first half wore on. Declan Rice was prominent, cool and collected on the ball, and Arsenal\u2019s movement was good. The options were there.<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico flickered in the early going, Arsenal a little loose at first. Rice had to block from Alvarez and the Atl\u00e9tico dangerman also worked David Raya from the edge of the area. Gradually, Arsenal took control. Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s first good moment came when he outmuscled Marcos Llorente and pulled back for Martin \u00d8degaard, whose shot was blocked by Johnny Cardoso. It was a good chance. Noni Madueke also fired just past the far post on the half hour.<\/p>\n
The first penalty stemmed from Arsenal\u2019s increasing control. Atl\u00e9tico could not get out and when Arsenal regained the ball and worked it up and into the box, Mart\u00edn Zubimendi playing the final pass, Gy\u00f6keres had the position on Hancko, whose efforts to rectify the situation were clumsy. Gy\u00f6keres felt the contact from behind and went down. The power in his conversion from the spot brooked no argument.<\/p>\n
Simeone knew he had to change things for the second half and his move was dramatic. He hooked his son, Guiliano, from the right wing and introduced an extra centre-half in Robin Le Normand. Llorente was essentially given the whole of the right flank; a wing-back come right winger.<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico were immediately better and the stadium bounced to a delirious beat after Alvarez lashed home his penalty. Moments earlier, Ademola Lookman had been denied by Raya and Antoine Griezmann could not convert the rebound. He appeared to want too much time and Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es blocked.<\/p>\n
Ben White was adjudged to have handled the ball after the intervention of the VAR, and Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez scored from the resulting penalty. Photograph: \u00c1ngel Mart\u00ednez\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The second penalty was one for the sticklers. Ben White knew nothing about the ball-smashed-hard-at-his-hand moment after an Atl\u00e9tico corner. It was Llorente with the shot and White was found guilty by the video assistant as his hand was stretched low and away from his body. Alvarez\u2019s penalty was emphatic and Atl\u00e9tico scented blood.<\/p>\n
Griezmann hit the crossbar with a wonderfully floated effort and, seconds later, blasted in a volley that deflected wide. And when Lookman got the better of White in the 74th minute, he seemingly had to score. Instead, he shot too close to Raya.<\/p>\n
Cue the moment that sparked Arsenal\u2019s regrets. It was chaos until Makkelie drew the outline of a TV screen with his fingers and ruled out the penalty. Arsenal will be fuelled by injustice in the second leg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a see-saw tie, a tale of three penalties; two scored, one by each team and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-637465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}