{"id":434581,"date":"2026-05-06T05:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/434581\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:27:12","slug":"we-knew-how-much-this-meant-to-everybody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/434581\/","title":{"rendered":"We knew how much this meant to everybody"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mikel Arteta hailed his “incredible” players for “making history” after Arsenal secured their place in the Champions League final with a 1-0 win against Atletico Madrid<\/a> at the Emirates Stadium.<\/p>\n

Bukayo Saka delivered the decisive goal on the stroke of half-time to fire the Gunners to a 2-1 aggregate semi-final triumph. They will face either Bayern Munich or Paris St Germain in Budapest on May 30.<\/p>\n

Following Manchester City’s 3-3 draw at Everton on Monday \u2013 which puts the Premier League title race in Arsenal\u2019s hands \u2013 and their triumph over Diego Simeone\u2019s side here just 24 hours later, Arteta\u2019s men are now only four matches away from completing a momentous double and securing the greatest campaign in the club\u2019s 140-year history.<\/p>\n

Arsenal have never won Europe\u2019s grandest tournament, and Arteta said: “It was an incredible night. We made history again together and I cannot be happier and prouder for everybody that\u2019s involved in this football club.<\/p>\n

“The supporters were with us for every ball. They made it special and unique, and I have never felt it like that in this stadium.<\/p>\n

“We knew how much it meant to everybody, we put everything on the line, the boys did an incredible job and after 20 years, and the second time in our history, we are back in the Champions League final.”<\/p>\n

Arsenal will arrive for the showpiece as the sole unbeaten team in this season\u2019s competition following a remarkable record of 11 wins and three draws. Indeed, their streak of 14 matches without defeat is a new Champions League record for the north London club.<\/p>\n

But Arteta\u2019s side will next take on West Ham at the London Stadium on Sunday, prior to a home match against Burnley and an away clash at Crystal Palace. Three wins will be enough for Arsenal to secure their first Premier League title in 22 years before they head to Hungary.<\/p>\n

\"LONDON,
\nArsenal players celebrate at full-time<\/p>\n

And Arteta added: “It\u2019s great. Everybody can feel a shift in energy, in belief, in everything. Let\u2019s use it in the right way and understand that the margins and the difficulty of what we are trying to achieve are huge, but that we have the ability and the conviction to do it.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m really going to enjoy it tonight, everybody\u2019s enjoying this moment now. But tomorrow we have to start to prepare for Sunday. We have an incredible game against West Ham, a really tough one, and we\u2019re going to have four days to do that. Let\u2019s enjoy the moment but tomorrow let\u2019s start to live in the present.”<\/p>\n

Atleti head coach Simeone appeared to shove Arsenal sporting director Andrea Berta on the touchline in the concluding moments of the game. However, he was magnanimous in defeat.<\/p>\n

Simeone said: “If we got knocked out it is because our opponents deserved to get through. I don\u2019t want to make excuses.<\/p>\n

“Mikel Arteta has done an incredible job at Arsenal. He has been trying to get to this point for a long time, to win the Premier League and the Champions League.<\/p>\n

“They have incredible financial power, and that is linked to what they are doing, but I am pleased for them because they deserve it.”<\/p>\n

Watch Bayern Munich v PSG in the Champions League semi-finals on Wednesday from 7.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta hailed his “incredible” players for “making history” after Arsenal secured their place in the Champions League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-434581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}