{"id":534056,"date":"2026-04-16T12:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/534056\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T12:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:17:11","slug":"arsenal-fc-route-to-champions-league-final-after-beating-sporting-cp-in-last-eight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/534056\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal FC route to Champions League final after beating Sporting CP in last-eight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/newsletter_arsenal_embed_desktop.png\" alt=\"Arsenal Football Newsletter\" width=\"158px\" height=\"158px\" class=\"sc-eEbqID ecGikU\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Under the new format, the Gunners\u2019 potential route to this season\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/champions-league-final\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Champions League final<\/a> has already been mapped out.<\/p>\n<p>This will be the first European knockout stage meeting between the two clubs since 2018 when Atletico beat the Gunners in the Europa League semi-final, thus denying Arsene Wenger a chance to end his reign as manager with a trophy.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of finishing top in the league phase, Arsenal will have the advantage of playing the second leg of their semi-final tie at the Emirates Stadium.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Arsenal15042026.jpeg\" width=\"6409\" height=\"4273\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"sc-eqUAAy kRUyJB\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Semi-final bound: Arsenal<\/p>\n<p>Arsenal FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the Gunners will have had home advantage throughout the knockout phase thanks to a new rule implemented by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/uefa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UEFA<\/a> at the start of the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>That could leave Arsenal taking on the six-time winners &#8211; with the likes of Harry Kane, Luis Diaz and Michael Olise in their ranks &#8211; in the 2026 Champions League final.<\/p>\n<p>Arsenal\u2019s potential path to Champions League final:<\/p>\n<p>Semi-finals: Atletico Madrid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the new format, the Gunners\u2019 potential route to this season\u2019s Champions League final has already been mapped&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8785,171858,49,50,51,47,52,48,2335],"class_list":{"0":"post-534056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-atletico-madrid","9":"tag-champions-league-final","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-uefa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}