UK News
Atlético Madrid v Arsenal: Champions League semi-final, first leg – live | Champions League
Key events
17 min “I’m too stressed out to actually answer your Premier League/Champions League question, and we’re less than 20 minutes hour into this match,” writes Russell Eberts. “I mostly just want this season to be over, so I don’t have to watch Arsenal again for a few months. This season has felt like being in a relationship with someone who’s emotionally manipulative, and has been about as fun as watching someone get their teeth cleaned.”
15 min: Fine defending by Carodoso! Gyokeres barrels irresistibly down the left, holds off Llorente and arrows a cutback towards the onrushing Odegaard. His shot from about 10 yards is crucially blocked by the stretching Cardoso.
14 min: Good save by Raya! Julian Alvarez controls a sharp square pass on the edge of the area, works a tiny bit of space with some lovely footwork and whacks a curler that is pushed round by the diving Raya.
14 min “I… I may have forgotten which leg this was,” hics James Humphries (see 7.48pm). “In my defence, tell me you don’t look at any Arsenal-Atletico fixture and immediately assume it’s the second leg of a grim/proper football (delete as appropriate) game standing at 0-0.
”Also, as a Motherwell fan I’m not used to a grinding defensive mindset… this season.”
13 min This already looks like it’s developing into an unyielding arm-wrestle. Both teams have had promising moments in attack, but Hincapie’s volley is the only half-decent chance.
10 min “After last night’s family-sized helping of Haribo, tonight will probably be the quinoa salad that we need but aren’t quite so excited about,” harrumps Andy Gordon.
9 min Arsenal have found their feet and it’s an even, relatively cagey game now.
6 min: Chance for Hincapie! Shrill whistles from the home fans as Arsenal enjoy their first extended spell of possession. Madueke beats two defenders beautifully and stands up a cross to the far post.
The diving Martinelli can’t reach it but his attempt serves to put off Hincapie, who slices a sidefoot volley wide. Not an easy chance, but a chance nonetheless.
5 min “Champions League,” says Gary Stover. “If you win the Champions League this year, beating Bayern or PSG in the final, you could lay claim to being the best club side ever.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but I agree it would add another layer of glory.
4 min Atleti have made a forceful start and are trying to set traps for Arsenal, who haven’t made an entirely assured start. To prove the point, a routine pass from Gabriel to Hincapie goes straight out of play.
3 min “I’ll take the league please BRob,” writes Paul Curievici. “Because this season has felt as long as the whole 22-year-drought, because it’s been so bitterly attritional, in the hope that if we finally win the bloody thing we’ll start to look like we enjoy playing football again. And also so my little lad can lord it over the glory-boy City fans at school for a change. Obviously the Champions League wouldn’t be a bad second option.”
2 min A slip from Hincapie allows Atletico to break. Alvarez, 25 yards out, has a shot blocked.
This isn’t the smoothest pitch in world football, as Spurs found out in the last 16, and moments later Raya shanks a clearance out of play.
1 min A couple of minutes later than advertised, Atletico get the second Champions League semi-final under way.
This is the first Champions League semi-final at the Wanda Metropolitano, and the atmosphere is specfreakintacular. Also: there is toilet roll everywhere.
“I suspect that Justin Kavanagh’s wish will be met tonight; after the Lord Mayor’s Show/ Last Night of the Proms/NASA moon landing fireworks of last night, pretty well anything will be a comedown,” writes Charles Antaki. “At least one team can be fairly guaranteed to lower the pulse, until, that is, their fans’ feelings about the effectiveness of the MGM start to get the better of them MGM? They’ve been more like Pathé news on previous outings, so some work required there.”
“It’s been an effortful few days,” writes James Humphries, “so I had clean forgot yesterday was PSG v Bayern and only discovered it when I started getting ‘football, bloody hell’ messages.
“Today however has been a day so beautiful I got waylaid in a beer garden on the way home and might end up watching this one – my apologies in advance for the 120 minutes of filth which will no doubt result.”
How do you know there will be half an hour of injury time? And how long have you been in that beer garden?
Mikel Arteta has just WhatsApped his pre-match thoughts
You can’t wait to play these kinds of games – as a club, as a player, as a manager.
[Viktor Gyokeres] is fresh and it’s an opponent that can fit him very, very well. We have options from the bench, though certain players are restricted to playing a certain number of minutes. [Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze] have done really well to be available.
[What have you learned from last year’s semi-final?] Every game is different. Every detail matters; you have to be ruthless in both boxes.
A fun bit of pre-match reading
“It’s 10 years since Saúl Ñíguez scored an amazing solo goal for Atlético against Bayern in their semi-final first leg,” writes Andrew Goudie. “I’ll never get tired of watching this, especially when he beats the last man.”
An entirely straightforward question for Arsenal fans
Premier League or Champions League? And why?
“Right,” says Justin Kavanagh, “let’s have a nice quiet 0-0 draw with top-notch defending and lots of safe, secure sideways passing tonight. My old heart can’t take another evening of racing palpitations and excitations like yesterday’s. And as for Mikel Arteta’s heart rate, well, if he’d been coaching either team last night, I fear for his well-being today.”
David Hytner
Martin Ødegaard has accepted that Arsenal will remain open to criticism until they shed their nearly-men reputation and is confident the club are primed to do precisely that this season.
The captain cut a convincing figure on the eve of Wednesday night’s Champions League semi-final first leg at Atlético Madrid, insisting he and his teammates were ready to respond to the lessons of the past and deliver silverware.
Ødegaard was referring to the Champions League semi-final exit against Paris Saint-Germain last season but he might also have been thinking about the Premier League runners-up finishes in each of the previous three years. Arsenal are top of the table and chasing a first league title since 2004.
“It’s always going to be there until we win and that’s something you have to live with,” Ødegaard said. “We need to take all our experiences and the lessons and use them in a good way. It’s part of football and part of the journey.
Atletico are renowned as a tight, pragmatic side, but their identity has changed a little in the last few years. Their 14 Champions League games this season have produced a whopping 60 goals.
Arsenal’s games have been a lot tighter, particularly at their end. In 12 games they’ve scored 27 and conceded only 5.
The players on a yellow card
Nobody. Yellow cards are wiped going into the semi-finals.
Sid Lowe
At the beginning of the final training session before their biggest game in a decade, Atlético Madrid’s players lined up by the centre circle at the Metropolitano and waited for their coach to come. Diego Simeone arrived and ran through the middle of them, from Juan Musso and Jan Oblak at one end to Antoine Griezmann and Ademola Lookman at the other. As he passed, head down, they cheered and hit him – if not quite as hard as they do when it’s a player’s turn. Gauntlet run, applause echoed round the empty stadium. Happy birthday, mister.
Simeone turned 56 on Tuesday. He has spent almost 20 of those here: first as the captain who won the double, then the coach who lifted Atlético’s next league title, 18 years on, and now leads them into his fourth and their seventh European Cup semi-final, nine years since the last. What do you get the man who has it all? “Buah! You can’t imagine how good it is to be in the four best teams in Europe,” he said after the quarter-final; “I have no birthday wish,” he said before this semi-final, “just pure gratitude to be able to be with my three sons on my birthday, with my two daughters, my mum, my wife, my lifelong friends.”
One of the sons was hidden in the crowd somewhere, hitting him. The day that Simeone bade farewell to the Vicente Calderón as a player in December 2004, he carried his youngest son, two-year-old Giuliano, in his arms. The days before he came back to Madrid as coach in December 2011, he stopped in a cafe in Mar del Plata and, over a croissant and a glass of milk, asked Giuliano, then eight, what he thought. “You’re going to coach [Radamel] Falcao?!” the kid replied, excitement giving way to reality. “But … if it goes well, you won’t come back.”
David Hytner
It was the night when Arsenal made their first big statement of the season in the Champions League, when they advertised their desire to go all the way in Europe’s most glamorous competition; to create club history. They had welcomed Atlético Madrid in the third round of league phase matches and it turned into a showcase for all of the best bits about Mikel Arteta’s team.
The bolted-door defence. The furious counterpress. The physicality. The speed and ruthlessness. The set-piece productivity. And, linked to everything but trumping the lot, the total self-belief. Arsenal were unable to find a way through in the first half or the early part of the second – it was tight – but they did not panic because they knew the goal would come. It was inevitable. They were inevitable.
When Gabriel Magalhães scored it in the 57th minute, it was the prompt for a devastating salvo, Arsenal raining in three more by the 70th minute. The game finished 4-0, Atlético departing battered and bruised. It was late October and the performance and result were very much of a piece with the Arsenal of the first half of the season.
Team news
Mikel Arteta makes two changes, both in attack, from the nervy Premier League victory over Newcastle on Saturday. Gabriel Martinelli and Viktor Gyokeres, who scored three of the four goals when Arsenal trounced Atletico earlier this season, replace Eberechi Eze and the injured Kai Havertz. It’s the MGM attack – Madueke, Gyokeres, Martinelli – so we’re contractually obliged to link to a lion roaring.
Bukayo Saka isn’t yet to fit to play a full 90 minutes; Riccardo Calafiori joins him on a strong Arsenal bench.
Atletico make four changes from their 3-2 win over Athletic Bilbao at the weekend. Julian Alvarez, David Hancko, Johnny Cardoso and Ademola Lookman come in for Clement Lenglet, Pablo Barrios, Alex Baena and Alexander Sorloth.
Atletico Madrid (4-4-2) Oblak; Llorente, Pubill, Hancko, Ruggeri; Simeone, Cardoso, Koke, Lookman; Griezmann, Alvarez.
Subs: Musso, Esquivel, Sorloth, Mendoza, Baena, Almada, Lenglet, Molina, Vargas, Le Normand, Bonar, Julio Diaz.
Arsenal (4-3-3) Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie; Odegaard, Zubimendi, Rice; Madueke, Gyokeres, Martinelli.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, Setford, Mosquera, Saka, Jesus, Eze, Norgaard, Trossard, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Dowman, Salmon.
Referee Danny Makkelie (Netherlands)
This is the fourth meeting between Atletico and Arsenal. The first two came in the Europa League semi-final of 2017-18, when goals from Antoine Griezmann and Diego Costa put Atleti through 2-1 on aggregate. The other was in the league phase of this season’s competition, when Arsenal ran riot in the second half.
Preamble
History is made! Or rather, it will be at 8pm BST tonight, when Mikel Arteta’s oft-maligned Arsenal play back-to-back Champions League semi-finals for the first time in the club’s history. It’ll count for little if they don’t win either the Premier League or Champions League this season, but it’s an undeniable marker of their progression from the 15th-best team in England to one Europe’s finest.
For the second year in a row, Arsenal’s semi-final involves arguably the two best teams never to win the European Cup or Champions League. Paris Saint-Germain’s glorious triumph last season left a vacancy for Atletico, though they would argue they were already in the top two. After all, no side has played in more Champions League finals without winning the thing. On all three occasions, in 1974, 2014 and 2016, Atleti came agonisingly close.
Either they or Arsenal, who lost their only final to Barcelona 20 years ago, will get another crack in Budapest on 30 May. It should be a fascinating struggle between two teams best known for their defensive excellence. Even if the reality is more nuanced, we’ll have none of that nine-goal nonsense tonight.
Kick off 8pm BST.
The family of Shaun Burton, say they are “devastated” by the loss.
Source link
Key events
In the opening half an hour against Cape Verde, Mikel Oyarzabal, the centre-forward, did not get a single touch.
Kyle Green gets in touch: “Your highlighting of Lalas and his absurdity is something that has prevented me from wanting to watch the coverage on Fox. While every channel has its pros and cons I just can’t.
“I’m 45 and probably the youngest of anyone who remembers him as a player instead of an opinionated insert insult here. As for the match this could be more competitive than it looks on paper Spain need a win the pressure is on them. Saudi Arabia could hold out for a draw and see what happens in their last match. “
News from the England camp, and it seems to be good news on Declan Rice.
“I’m ready and fit, raring to go. I was feeling a little bit of neural pain in my hamstring, which I was managing from after Christmas with Arsenal for a very long time. Obviously, not a lot of people would have known that. It was all behind-the-scenes stuff but it was a smart decision.
“In the end, that last 20 minutes is probably where you pick up the most, and it’s where you play a 70-minute match. But that last 20 is where you really feel your body going for it. And I think it was a smart decision because the last few days I felt really, really good.”
Alex Reid has penned today’s weekend special Football Daily.
Portugal v Uzbekistan on Tuesday enticingly pits the incredibly nice, incredibly 41-year-old-superstar-tolerant Roberto Martínez against Fabio Cannavaro, who’s won a Ballon d’Or as a player and the Chinese Super League as a coach. While the fixture following that game really does see the dream of Thomas Tuchel – in his first international job with England – taking on Queiroz, who is in charge of his ninth national side with Ghana.
The expected formations are 4-2-3-1 for Spain, and 5-3-2 for the Saudi Arabians.
The Saudi team features two Donis changes: Ali Lajami, a defender, and Nasser Al Dawsari, a midfielder, are preferred to Mohammed Abu Al Shamat and Mohamed Kanno. You may recall Salem Al Dawsari, the Saudi captain, as the man who scored the winner against Argentina.
An entertaining read, even for those of us who have just seen the clips.
In a conversation where his co-panelist is casually reminiscing about his days playing alongside Messi or exchanging shirts with Ronaldo Nazário at the World Cup, what exactly is Lalas going to talk about – coming on as a second-half substitute for Earnie Stewart in a friendly against Scotland in 1998? Helping the Kansas City Wizards finish last in the 1999 MLS Western Conference? Did Lalas enjoy an elite playing career? No. But does he do the background reading that could compensate for his relative lack of standing in a conversation with titans like Henry and Zlatan? Also no. But is he charming or funny or charismatic or otherwise magnetic on screen? Eh, no.
For the record, I once interviewed Alexi Lalas on the challenge of playing against Romario in the 1994 World Cup. He had this to say:
“He could kill you in so many different ways. If you remember from that World Cup, he scored so many types of goals. That ranged from solo adventures to an outside-of-the-right-foot half-volley off a corner kick. Romario was both the most difficult to play against and the best that I have faced.
“Roberto Baggio was doing his thing, but in terms of consistency and living up to the hype, he [Romario] was the best. As with all stars, there was a moment when the fans sit up in their seats, and that was a feeling I got with Romario. When it got close to him and the potential for his involvement in a play was there, everybody sat up in their seat. They knew that something spectacular would be happening.”
Saturday’s match reports here.
The Saudi Arabia coach, and Blackburn legend, Georgios Donis, spoke about the challenges facing his team: “Spain is not the same team when Yamal or Williams are on the bench.
“While they still have plenty of possession, they lack the individual one-on-one penetration when these two are missing. I’m not saying it’s a problem for Spain, but when those players are missing, they play in a different way. We saw this very clearly against Cape Verde.
“We are playing against one of the best teams in the world, and it’s very important that when you play against these kinds of teams, you should enjoy the experience and respect the opponent, but not too much.
“It is very hard for any team playing against Spain to have any time in possession. So what we must do is to be more in control of our movement and compact, and when the ball goes through the lines, be able to defend dynamically.
“It’s nice to see miracles in football, and we’ve seen favourites losing against underdogs. Of course, it’s great for Saudi football to have a great memory of the result against Argentina, but we aren’t drawing anything from that.
“I think we’ll feel more pressure in that [Cape Verde] game than we will against Spain.”
The Spain coach, Luis De La Fuente had this to say in his Saturday press conference: “This generation of footballers is highly competitive and really fired up… It’s going to be a completely different story,” he said at his pre-match press conference on Saturday. There is no drama or crisis. The bottom line is simply that we need to win tomorrow.”
Four changes for Spain: Lamine Yamal, Pedro Porro, Dani Olmo and Alex Baena also come into the side with Marcos Llorente, Fabian Ruiz, Ferran Torres and Gavi dropping out.
The teams – Lamine Yamal starts
Spain: Simon, Porro, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella, Gonzalez, Rodri, Yamal, Olmo, Baena, Oyarzabal. Subs: Raya, Joan Garcia, Pubill, Grimaldo, Eric Garcia, Llorente, Merino, Torres, Fabian, Gavi, Pino, Williams, Zubimendi, Munoz, Iglesias.
Saudi Arabia: Al Owais, Abdulhamid, Tambakti, Lajami, Al Amri, Al Harbi, Nasser Al Dawsari, Al Khaibari, Al Juwayr, Al Buraikan, Salem Al Dawsari. Subs: Al Aqidi, Al Kassar, Majrashi, Yahya, Al Shehri, Al Boushal, Kadesh, Al Johani, Al Ghannam, Al Hajji, Al Hamdan, Mandash, Kanno, Thakri, Abu Al Shamat.
Referee: Raphael Claus (Brazil)
Perhaps one of the Saudi -players can write themselves into this high-grade selection?
Perhaps it can be their goalkeeper.
Madrid screening of Spain v Saudi Arabia cancelled due to heat
The public screening of Spain’s World Cup match against Saudi Arabia in Madrid on Sunday has been cancelled because of extreme heat forecast for the Spanish capital, officials said.
The match, due to kick off at 6pm local time on Sunday, had been scheduled to be shown on a giant screen installed by the Spanish football federation (RFEF) at a fan zone in Plaza de Colón in central Madrid.
Madrid city council and the federation decided to cancel the screening after national weather agency AEMET issued an orange heat warning – the second-highest level – for the Madrid region, with temperatures forecast to reach 40C.
“The decision has been taken with the aim of protecting the health of attendees, event staff and support services involved in the event,” Madrid city hall said in a statement, apologising for any inconvenience.
Officials urged supporters to watch the match indoors in air-conditioned spaces and avoid prolonged exposure to the heat.
Large parts of Spain are experiencing unusually high temperatures for June as a mass of hot air from North Africa moves across the Iberian Peninsula.
A total of 13 of Spain’s 17 regions are on orange alert for heat on Sunday, while the northern Basque Country bordering France is on red alert, the highest level.
Authorities advised residents and visitors to take precautions during the heatwave, including drinking water regularly, staying in cool environments, limiting outdoor physical activity during the hottest hours of the day and taking extra care of vulnerable people. AFP
Can Saudi Arabia repeat the magic of 2022?
Argentina arrived in Qatar on a 36-game unbeaten run. When Lionel Messi opened the scoring from the penalty spot after 10 minutes, a comfortable afternoon seemed in the offing. Saleh al-Shehri and Salem al-Dawsari had other ideas, Argentina had three goals disallowed for offside in the space of 13 minutes and the greatest comeback in Saudi Arabia football history was made. Argentina went on to lift the trophy, while defeats to Poland and Mexico meant the Saudis did not reach the knock-out stage.
Unai Simon over David Raya is a controversial choice for De la Fuentes. The Arsenal keeper could lay claim to being Europe’s best this season.
“Those at the Champions League final had a few more days, so I got there on the Wednesday night,” Raya says. “I arrived a bit before Fabián [Ruiz]. I was saying hello to some of the others in reception when he arrived. I went to say congratulations; that was almost the first thing I did. I couldn’t really talk [to him] after the final; I just didn’t have it in me. The next day we talked about the game properly. Just two mates chatting … I was happy for him that he could lift the trophy for a second time.”
A high pressure game for the European champions, as Sid Lowe reports.
“If we had scored one, the game would have changed,” Martín Zubimendi said. Immediately after the game, De la Fuente had offered a simple analysis: when the ball doesn’t want to go in it doesn’t want to go in, he insisted. Spain had racked up 27 shots, after all. Ferran Torres had hit the bar and seen another clear opportunity saved. Vozinha, the 40-year-old goalkeeper who stopped that, saved six more and was named the man of the match. “There’s nothing to reproach the team for,” Rodri said. “We generated chances but couldn’t put it away; the good thing is they created almost nothing.”
We wait to see what role Lamine Yamal will play today. His coach would surely like to be able to use him.
The worst mistake we could make would be to compare him to anyone. He is the midst of a process. He has exceptional footballing maturity and lives it all with total naturalness. He has great serenity and strength. We have to let him follow his path but those players who have something different are ready for that. They’re geniuses, like Dalí [who] can paint a picture, or Michelangelo. They’re different. What is exceptional to us, isn’t to them. In those extremes, they feel comfortable. Why? Because they are different. What we think is exceptional, they consider normal.
Preamble
Spain’s campaign did not get off to a flying start, and Luis de la Fuentes may wake up in the night to visions of Cape Verde’s Vozinha. He will have Georgia on his mind ever since Monday. Saudi Arabia are no pushovers and gave Uruguay a scare in their opening match. Memories of downing Argentina four years ago still abound, and so Spain might beware. They can ill afford to go into the final game with Uruguay at a disadvantage. All eyes on Lamine Yamal, whose fitness situation remains opaque, though Spain need their other forwards to come to the party.
Kick-off 5pm UK, 1pm ET, 2am AEST. Join me.
A topless man can be seen driving erratically in Edinburgh before abandoning his car and attacking a black man and a delivery rider.
Source link
-
Business & Technology3 weeks agoHSBC UK & Visa test AI shopping with live payments
-
Business & Technology4 weeks agoMouser warns against viral hacks to cool overheating phones
-
Business & Technology3 weeks agoValarian lands USD $50 million backing for sovereign AI
-
Oxford News4 weeks agoDWP now checking bank accounts for Universal Credit and Pension Credit
-
Oxford Events4 weeks agoHenley Festival 2026 highlights: Five nights of unforgettable performances and festival moments
-
Oxford united FC3 weeks agoOxford United three players who be kept after transfer ban
-
Business & Technology4 weeks agoOde launches free AI voice service for poem recommendations
-
Business & Technology4 weeks agoZYMIX uses Henley event to pitch social app to Gen Z