{"id":434804,"date":"2026-05-06T08:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T08:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/434804\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T08:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T08:27:09","slug":"bukayo-saka-books-place-in-champions-league-final-as-arsenal-end-20-year-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/434804\/","title":{"rendered":"Bukayo Saka books place in Champions League final as Arsenal end 20-year wait"},"content":{"rendered":"

Champions League semi-final, second leg: Arsenal 1 Atletico Madrid 0 (Arsenal win 2-1 on agg)\n<\/p>\n

A season that has been characterised by such angst and toil may yet finish with jubilation and ascension \u2013 twice over.<\/p>\n

You could see from the final whistle this meant everything, as players punched the air in joy \u2013 and they might yet win everything that matters.<\/p>\n

The Premier League trophy and European Cup are both now within touching distance.<\/p>\n

Even a long-awaited return to the Champions League final \u2013 just the second in their history and first since 2006 \u2013 represents an immense achievement.<\/p>\n

Few expected this when Mikel Arteta took over given the basketcase they were in December 2019, and even a few seasons into his tenure. He has restored a seriousness to the club and returned them to the elite.<\/p>\n

This is what they dreamed of.<\/p>\n

\"Arsenal's<\/p>\n

Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka (centre) celebrates scoring their side’s first goal<\/p>\n

Mikel Arteta thrilled as Arsenal \u2018make history together\u2019 <\/p>\n

Budapest now offers the opportunity for the Basque to become the first manager to bring the Champions League back to Arsenal.<\/p>\n

And what might the joy of this do for their title challenge? Remarkably, this was a night to forget about that. It was all about what happened here.<\/p>\n

Duly, this semi-final win over Atletico Madrid was almost characteristic of the entire season so far.<\/p>\n

Arsenal had to fight. It was painfully tense, with the lead so exactingly narrow.<\/p>\n

And yet they persevered. They kept going, despite the usual doubts.<\/p>\n

They had a lot of luck, especially with two penalty decisions, sure, but Arteta would say they deserved some; that it was just that same luck coming back around.<\/p>\n

Almost fittingly for the occasion, the key players were all those who have endured different types of adversity this season.<\/p>\n

Bukayo Saka \u2013 injured for so long that Arsenal\u2019s attack lost spark and debate grew over whether he would ever evolve into the player that consistently delivers at this level \u2013 got the goal that mattered.<\/p>\n

Viktor Gyokeres, so often maligned as a signing they shouldn\u2019t have made, made the difference by setting that goal up.<\/p>\n

Myles Lewis-Skelly, for long periods discarded to the point that talk has risen over whether this teenage prodigy would be sold, offered the energy they had also been missing for long periods.<\/p>\n

And they really did need it against a side that battles like Atletico.<\/p>\n

As ugly as this game often was \u2013 it was hard not to feel some of the emotion and romance from it all.<\/p>\n

On the other side, Diego Simeone doesn\u2019t get that Champions League moment this season. The great Antoine Griezmann will now never get it, this defeat forming his last match in the competition.<\/p>\n

\"Atletico<\/p>\n

Atletico Madrid’s Diego Simeone and the players applaud the supporters at the the end of the Champions League semi-final, second leg in London.<\/p>\n

The harsher truth is, as supreme as he is in individual moments, you could see why.<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t sustain it. Neither could Atletico.<\/p>\n

Once he was taken off, they had little. One snatched Alexander Sorloth chance wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

But that shouldn\u2019t be confused with a lack of tension, a lack of suspense.<\/p>\n

This was a heavy match, that required muscle.<\/p>\n

Gyokeres provided it.<\/p>\n

The striker has often received warranted criticism for his struggles in holding the ball up, but here he was hunting for it, while holding Atletico defenders off.<\/p>\n

Gyokeres made himself a nuisance.<\/p>\n

Arsenal\u2019s breakthrough came from that persistence. Gyokeres had chased what looked a lost cause to get free down the right \u2013 and suddenly a lot of space in the Atletico area opened up.<\/p>\n

The only issue was that it was all space beside the byline, limiting his options.<\/p>\n

Gyokeres picked the right one.<\/p>\n

He arced the ball over to Leandro Trossard, whose angled strike was well saved by Jan Oblak. Saka, however, had already made his move.<\/p>\n

Since his return, the winger has rightly attracted a lot of praise for the extra dimension he gives Arsenal through cutting in from the right, making it all the more remarkable that Atletico didn\u2019t seem to notice. So, there he was, in between two defenders to just tap in.<\/p>\n

Gyokeres should have done the same later on.<\/p>\n

It feels it can\u2019t quite be Gyokeres 2025-26 without some caveat, though. He should really have made the game safe on 65 minutes, when substitute Piero Hincapie swept over the most inviting cross on the counter.<\/p>\n

Instead, with no one else around him and only Oblak to beat, Gyokeres got the bounce wrong and sent it over.<\/p>\n

That would have been too easy, after all.<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t have fit this match.<\/p>\n

\"Arsenal's<\/p>\n

Arsenal’s Noni Madueke, manager Mikel Arteta, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze celebrate after reaching the Champions League final.<\/p>\n

It has been said before that, in contrast to the expansiveness of Paris Saint-Germain versus Bayern Munich, this was going to be a semi-final played in the margins. And not just in the margins, but right into each other.<\/p>\n

There was one moment when Griezmann and Robin Le Normand vigorously celebrated the award of a goal-kick, rather than a corner.<\/p>\n

It was obviously always going to be that kind of game, so ensured that many of the key moments came down to interpretations of contact.<\/p>\n

Arsenal could add to their list of grievances from the first leg, as Trossard seemed to be bundled by Griezmann.<\/p>\n

This one didn\u2019t feel as strong as some of Atletico\u2019s claims, mind.<\/p>\n

The biggest was when Giuliano Simeone appeared set to capitalise on a Declan Rice error, only to be denied by Gabriel. Or was it Gabriel?<\/p>\n

The replays didn\u2019t seem to show the defender actually making contact with the ball as he jostled with Simeone until both lost their balance.<\/p>\n

A corner was given, but it felt like it should have been a penalty.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, in the midst of Atletico\u2019s best spell of pressure, Griezmann went down under a challenge from Riccardo Calafiori only for the referee to immediately signal a free-kick the other way for a Marc Pubill foul.<\/p>\n

Diego Simeone was livid.<\/p>\n

Arsenal responded with the same energy.<\/p>\n

They won the fight. They won the game. They now have a chance of winning everything that matters. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Champions League semi-final, second leg: Arsenal 1 Atletico Madrid 0 (Arsenal win 2-1 on agg) A season that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[15133,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-434804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-arsenal","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434804","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=434804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}