Arsenal cruised into the Champions League quarter-final with victory at the Bernabeu against Real Madrid on Wednesday night.
Bukayo Saka atoned for a first-half penalty miss with a deft dink that gave the Gunners the lead in the 65th minute, before Vinicius Junior equalised just minutes later after a mistake from William Saliba.
Gabriel Martinelli gave the North Londoners the win in the Spanish capital, slotting past Thibaut Courtois at the death after being played in by Mikel Merino.
Arsenal’s 2-1 win against Real Madrid gave them a 5-1 victory on aggregate, and they’ll now face Paris Saint-Germain in the last four of Europe’s elite competition.
How Real Madrid fans reacted to Arsenal’s performance at the Bernabeu
Knowing a narrow game would see the Gunners progress, Mikel Arteta set his team up to contain Real Madrid’s star-studded eleven, and they did so effectively.
Declan Rice was magnificent, while the likes of Myles Lewis-Skelly, Jurrien Timber and Merino all shone for Arsenal.
In what began as a ferocious atmosphere inside the cauldron of the Bernabeu, it soon descended into a cacophony of frustration from the avid Madristas.
The Gunners’ time-wasting and ability to suffocate possession for long periods ramped up the anxiety from the watching home crowd.
The longer the game wore on at 0-0, the more the Real Madrid faithful expressed their anger at their own team, as well as at the officiating.
Whenever Arsenal threatened to break with the likes of Saka and Martinelli, the home supporters were visibly and audibly petrified of what might happen.
After Saka’s strike, the atmosphere was deflated, and the Madrid singing was drowned out by a chorus of ‘Allez, Allez, Allez’ up in the gods at the Bernabeu.
At full-time, there seemed to be an acceptance that Arsenal had been the better team and deserved their passage into the semi-final, with groups of Gunners fans clustered around the ground celebrating within the home crowd.
How Mikel Arteta won the tactical battle against Carlo Ancelotti
In the first leg, Carlo Ancelotti made several tactical blunders, deploying Rodygo extremely deep, man-marking Martin Odegaard out of the game using Jude Bellingham and having Kylian Mbappe drop deep into the pockets to receive the ball.
All of these ploys left Real Madrid with no outlets going forward, which meant they effectively stifled themselves.
In the second leg, Ancelotti amended some of these issues, but Arteta trumped him anyway.
The Arsenal boss knew Real Madrid aren’t an effective pressing team, and chose to enact a conservative possession game plan, keeping the ball from the European champions.
However, the Gunners were equally as effective sitting in a low block when they needed to, frustrating a Los Blancos side that thrives in transition but struggles against set defences.
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