2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Eamon Dunphy)
Twenty-three clubs have won the Champions League or European Cup as it was originally known. Arsenal aren’t one of those. Now there is a reason why this matters because as a club they are widely regarded as an English institution, 13-times League champions, a record 14-times winners of the FA Cup.
That, as well as a 60,000-seater stadium, makes them a big club. But winning a Champions League elevates you into a great one. Read more: Eamon Dunphy column: Is letting Declan Rice go the biggest mistake Irish football has ever made? Read more: Eamon Dunphy column: I was moved to tears by Rory McIlroy's triumph - his win surpasses Italia 90 And there is a difference.
Add a Champions League to your CV and your status changes. Look at how Ajax and Benfica continue to be regarded even though they have done nothing significant in years. And the same can be said for other one-time winners, Aston Villa, Steaua Bucharest, Hamburg, PSV Eindhoven.
That’s why the events of the last nine days matter. Until Declan Rice scored the first of his two wonderful free kicks, no one in Europe really believed they had the ability to knock Real Madrid out of the competition. But while football is always evolving in a tactical sense, one constant always remains.
Attitude wins. The team with togetherness and a work ethic will always stand a chance. Arsenal had that across the two legs.
Real Madrid did not. They played like fakes. This idea that Jude Bellingham is a great player doesn’t wash.
He isn’t. Great players turn up in big games. Bellingham stayed in the dressing room.
Instead it was another English international - someone who would still be an Ireland international if Martin O’Neill had done his job properly - who shone. And that is Declan Rice. Those two free kicks he scored at the Emirates were then matched by the quality of his leadership in the Bernabeu.
Arsenal won 2-1 in that second leg to complete a 5-1 aggregate win. Had Rice been in a Madrid shirt and Bellingham in an Arsenal one, that scoreline would have been reversed. That’s how good Rice is; and that is how much of a cod Bellinhgham is.
We could say the same about Kylian Mbappe. He showed zero interest in being a team player across the two legs. Nothing he did was impressive.
But everything Rice did caught the eye. These things matter because Mikel Arteta inherited a mess when he took over at Arsenal and has not been given an open chequebook to change things. Instead he has gone down the old fashioned route of buying wisely rather than expensively.
Rice, yes, cost a lot of money. But David Raya was bought for just £27m from Brentford and reminds me of the time Brian Clough went to the transfer market and picked up Peter Shilton for a song. Three years later Forest were double European Cup winners and league champions.
The scores in their two European Cup finals: 1-0 wins. Without Shilton they would have got nowhere. Can Arsenal seal the deal this year, too? They certainly have a chance because PSG are world class operators at choking under pressure whenever they reach the latter stages of this competition.
Barcelona, the club who defeated Arsenal when the Gunners reached their sole Champions League final in 2006, remain the big threat. But Arsenal can dare to dream - irrespective of how bad a team Real Madrid have become. Under Arteta the Gunners have improved substantially year on year.
They won the FA Cup in 2020. Then they finished eighth, fifth, second and second in the League. They most likely will finish runners-up again.
But this European run matters more because throughout the club’s history, including the Wenger years, they have only made it to the last four on three occasions. Only twice have they won silverware in Europe but those two trophies, the Inter City Fairs Cup and the Cup Winners Cup, no longer exist, the former trophy lasting only 16 years and ceasing to be a thing in 1971. So, Arsenal need this trophy.
And so does Arteta, not because he needs to solidify his reputation, simply because he has earned the right to a slice of good fortune. He has rebuilt Arsenal. While Real Madrid were able to get Mbappe and Bellingham, Arteta has had to go to clubs like Brentford, West Ham and Brighton for his players.
He has been brave, realising Aaron Ramsdale was a fine goalkeeper, but that Raya was an even better one. And he has had to endure a number of injuries to key players. Gabriel Jesus is not even a 20-goal a season man - but he has still been sorely missed with injury.
Bukayo Saka is explosive, a genuine star. He too has been out for prolonged periods this year, as has Kai Havertz. Jurien Timber missed four weeks; Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel, Riccardo Calafiori, Oleksandro Zinchenko, Kieran Tierney, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Thomas Partey, Rice, Martin Odegaard, Ethan Nwaneri, Gabriel Martinelli, Saka, Havertz and Jesus have all spent various times out of the team with injury.
Little wonder they are 13 points adrift of Liverpool. To mount a title challenge you need to have your best team available. Arsenal haven’t had that.
Yet somehow they have navigated their way through to the semi-finals of the Champions League, beating the most successful team in the tournament’s history en route. Can they go on and win it? The answer to that is an emphatic yes. PSG are vulnerable; Arsenal in contrast are being coaxed by a brilliant manager.
And in Declan Rice they have the one we let slip away, a leader, a champion, an athlete and scorer of the two best free kicks I have seen in years. Back them. This can be their year.
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