Arsenal are preparing to take on Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League semi-final.
The Gunners host PSG at the Emirates on Tuesday night in the first leg of the tie, in what will be one of the biggest matches in the North London club’s recent history.
Mikel Arteta’s team then travel to the French capital for the second leg at the Parc des Princes next week, with both teams vying to win their first ever Champions League title.
Arguably the biggest clubs in two of Europe’s most distinguished cities, Arsenal and PSG have a storied relationship that has seen them deal with each other on a number of occasions in the past.
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Arsenal signed Nicolas Anelka from PSG
Arsenal beat PSG 2-0 back in October, but the two European giants’ connection goes back far beyond this recent Champions League clash.
Arteta played for PSG, and won the Intertoto Cup, a continental trophy, with the Parisians in 2001.
Before that, Arsenal made one of their greatest ever signings from the French side, with Nicolas Anelka swapping Paris for N5 in 1997.
Born in Paris, Anelka had developed through PSG’s academy and was identified by Arsene Wenger as a potentially elite young talent.
Wenger brought the 17-year-old striker to Highbury for £500,000, and he’d go on to develop into a special player.
Scoring 28 goals in 90 appearances in his two-and-a-half-year stint in North London, the Gunners sold Anelka to Real Madrid for £22.3 million in 1999 – a staggering fee at the time.
Not only had Wenger unearthed a generational talent, he’d also turned an astronomical profit on the player, in the space of just 36 months.
Anelka would later return to his boyhood club for a season and a half, and undoubtedly has to go down as one of Arsenal’s greatest ever signings, given the value he provided for how much the club paid for him and how much he fetched in the sale to Los Blancos.
Mikel Arteta played with ‘unbelievable’ Nicolas Anelka at PSG
Dennis Bergkamp claimed Anelka was his favourite strike partner at Arsenal, while Martin Keown revealed his belief that the Frenchman would’ve eclipsed Thierry Henry in North London if he’d not departed for Real Madrid.
These comments from Arsenal legends are an indictment of Anelka’s quality, and they’re not the only Gunners figures to have waxed lyrical about the player.
Arteta played with Anelka upon the number nine’s return to PSG, and the Arsenal boss cited him when talking about his time in Paris.
“Unbelievable,” he said.
“We had Ronaldinho, [Jay-Jay] Okocha, Anelka, [Mauricio] Pochettino, [Gabriel] Heinze. They were all unbelievable.
“It was my first professional experience. I had an unbelievable time there. I will always be grateful to Luiz Fernandez because he was the one who believed in me when I was 17 or 18-years-old and gave me the platform in professional football.
“From there in a club of that size and city that is probably the most beautiful one in Europe, it’s a an experience that will stay with me forever, with teammates that shaped who I want to be as a player and I think igniting in me something to become a manager.
“I think there were some very important individuals in that part of my career.”
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