The End Of Madrid | UCL Review

Almost 20 years ago, Arsenal faced Real Madrid in the Champions League. It was an intense match that saw Madrid fight their way back from a two-goal deficit to win the game and lift the trophy. Too bad you know that stuff like that only happens in movies. When Madrid needed Santiago Munoz the most, he refused the call. Real Madrid won Arsenal 5. This round of Champions League matches has been the gift that keeps on giving. Arsenal proved to be the only team that won their first league that did not appear to struggle at getting the job done. PSG almost defaulted to factory settings. Barcelona lost their first match of the year and Bayern Munich could do nothing about one of the most impressive sides of the year. Hello everyone, hope you're doing well. So, I mentioned the famous comeback that Real Madrid did against Arsenal back in the day. This happened in the movie Goal 2 and without giving away too much from that movie, which you should consider a courtesy if you haven't seen it because it came out like 20 years ago. The climax involves a Champions League final between Real Madrid and Arsenal and Arsenal go up two goals and Real Madrid eventually go up and win the trophy. But the only thing about this scene is that the real-life footage that they took and used in the movie came from a round of 16 match between Arsenal and Real Madrid in the 2006 Champions League, which Arsenal won at the Bernabeu by a goal. So, basically what I'm trying to say right now is a world where Real Madrid is better than Arsenal is fiction. These clubs have only played each other four times in their respective histories. Arsenal have won three and Drogne won. But of course, we're in 2025. Now, Arsenal, to their credit, they really came to play in this game. I thought there was a good balance between defending and holding the line to quell off all that danger and moving forward, which of course they had to do because Real Madrid was always going to come into this game with an emphasis on trying to get on the front foot as quickly as possible with their front man. Vinicius Jr and Mbappe were flying forward from minute one, but nothing opened up for them because every time they got on the ball, at least two or three Arsenal players was meeting them with a smile. Here's a snip from the first half. I think it was the first meaningful attack of the game in general. Vinicius is always going to look to shoot here, but he has virtually no angle. Here's a snip from the second half. The result is the same. He doesn't even look up to see where his teammates are, which is obviously a big problem with this team, but maybe more on that later. But then in attack, I guess a lot of people expected Arsenal to soak up all this pressure and then throw everyone forward as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Of course, they didn't. They were patient, but not passive. They didn't need to push the envelope and try and get goals. The onus wasn't on them to score. They were already three goals up. They just needed to focus on plugging out all the holes that were in their attack and defense, which I think they did brilliantly. And this is something that seems to have rattled the Real Madrid players quite a lot, especially players like Lucas Vazquez, who after the game came out and said that Arsenal basically came to the game to not play and just defend in the first half. I'm not really sure which game he was watching because Real Madrid didn't do much in that first half. I don't think they had a shot on target at all, whereas Arsenal had three. Arsenal came to neutralize them. They were still attacking. Courtois was forced into three saves. David Raya barely touched the ball. As a matter of fact, in that first half, I think the only interactions that Raya had with Kylian Mbappe was when they were taking six minutes to decide on a penalty. Arsenal scored twice at the Bernabeu despite missing a penalty. If that doesn't tell you that you were outplayed, I don't think much else will. On to Bukayo Saka. I'm pretty sure that this guy woke up and had one thought on his mind the entire day. I have to chip the keeper. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. He just executed the first one poorly. Well played by Courtois to leave Saka with egg on his face. In a match like this, you have to score those. Luckily for him, it didn't matter in the end. Now was it a penalty? I mean, we've seen them given. We've seen them not given. Same actually Some referees would give that. Many in La Liga would. Allegedly. But I mean, honestly, Arsenal defended so well in this game. I can't think of any moment in time throughout the entire match where Real Madrid looked like the team in the ascendancy. The team that was really going to push the envelope apart from maybe like the first five minutes. And the calmness and composure that was shown by this Arsenal side is really exemplified through their opening goal scored in that 65th minute. They don't force the issue. Saka runs onto a Mourinho header. I did think that this looked a tad off sides when I watched it for the first time. But I mean, I haven't gone back and examined anything. And honestly, it is what it is. What are you going to do? I'll trust the on-field decision. In any case, Arsenal just slowly cut through while these Madrid defenders are busy ball watching. Saka's movement here shows why he's the star boy that he is. He goes between Rüdiger and Garcia and finds himself in the center forward spot. The two look horribly out of sync as nobody is truly marking him. And look at the space he's in now. Asensio has no idea he's behind him. And now it's a one-on-one. And then the finish. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. Beautiful goal. Truly glorious. Martinelli then goes ahead and outruns Fran Garcia for the third goal of the night. Garcia came on in the 60th minute, 61st minute or something like that. Martinelli played the entire 90 minutes and here he is outgassing him with no competition while Garcia just gives up. It kind of sums up Real Madrid's performance over the two ties. Martinelli though, he played really well. I kind of forgot he was Brazilian for a second. He reminded me expeditiously. But just a little bit more on Bukayo Saka. I feel like he was in a lot more space than I'm typically used to seeing him in. Usually in the Premier League at the very least, he's double or triple marked by every single team that Arsenal come up against. But in this game, David Alaba was left to go one-on-one against him almost every time Saka got the ball. Which, for a guy like David Alaba who hasn't really been playing all that much or well for the past two years, seems pretty criminal of a decision by Real Madrid. On to Real Madrid in general. I'm obviously a complete neutral in this entire thing as I have been in the Champions League for the past. I mean, you know, it doesn't matter. I just wanted the best team to win. Didn't really care who that was. But Real Madrid weren't giving me many good reasons to back them. After the match, they've been shown to be sore losers during the match. They were pretty dirty. The number of comeback compilations that were flooding my timeline on all platforms. The Real Madrid fans from the comments section of last week's video that were fighting for their lives and fighting everybody else that was just insinuating that Arsenal might be able to go through in this tie. They were really leaning into the villain role a bit here. Rudiger could have avoided stepping on Lewis Skelly here. What is going on with Danny Carvajal? Why is he grabbing Bukayo Saka's neck? The only reason Madrid were even on the score sheet was thanks to a horrible Saliba mistake. Over the two games, Arsenal outran Madrid by very large margins. The scoreline was completely deserved. Such a wild scoreline. Real Madrid won. Arsenal. I think Arsenal have a lot higher of a chance than many people are willing to admit of going all the way in this year's competition. If you look at all the teams that are left right now, we have Barcelona, PSG and Inter Milan. All of whom I would think many people would be thinking have a higher chance than going through because of historical reasons, maybe form reasons. But if you look at all the teams from this round of quarterfinals that went through, by the way, every single team that won their first leg eventually went through. But the only team that didn't really struggle was Arsenal. And you could argue that they had the toughest of competition. I'm talking based on historical and psychological reasons. Going to the Bernabeu with all the talk about comebacks and Real Madrid's black magic in the league. But they didn't. And I do think that counts for quite a lot. Anyway, moving on to the rest of the games. And we'll start with PSG and Aston Villa. So in the lead up to this match, there was obviously quite a lot of talk about the biggest and best comeback in recent Champions League history. Perhaps even the biggest and best comeback in Champions League history between Luis Enrique's Barcelona and Unai Emery's PSG. A lot of people, particularly Villa fans, were thinking that this could be the second coming. Sadly, the first 30 minutes or so of this game didn't really show that much promise. Both of PSG's fullbacks opened the scoring with a goal apiece. Mendes scored for the second time in a row against Villa. And all this was just a great testament to PSG's attacking prowess. It was a little bit similar to that Arsenal-Real Madrid match where, like Arsenal, PSG had a substantial lead to defend and they didn't really need to push the envelope that much. Just push forward as soon as the opportunity arrives. And it was clear that those fullbacks and just the wide players in general were instructed to push up as far as possible as soon as those breaks came. Lo and behold, both defenders scored. At this point, it was 5-1 and it really looked like Villa stood no chance. In my mind at this point in time, the only thing going through it was that this PSG side is special. Clearly the strongest side in the Champions League they've put out in the last 5 years. I thought there was no way back for Villa. I was wrong. I really need to know what Emery told his boys at halftime so I can play it every day when I wake up. Tielemans scores towards the end of the first half but still I don't think a lot of people were willing to dare to believe. And then, the first 20 minutes of the second half. Good lord, what a blitz. It all comes down to John McGinn driving right through the heart and scoring from far out. He needs to be closed down here and this is where that PSG DNA starts coming out. Obviously I'm not alone in saying this but I love seeing Marcus Rashford actually motivated to play and put out his best form like he was in the second half of this game. I don't even care if it's not in the United shirt. As a matter of fact, I really needed him to score in this game and do a little bit more just so I can get that second hand euphoria. Maybe even roleplay as a Villa fan. For a second, Claritin Blue didn't seem like a bad color combination. Just for a second though. No, calm down. Aston Villa just kept on attacking throughout that Honestly, I'm really surprised they didn't score more goals and flip this entire tie on its head. PSG was staring down the barrels of yet another historic comeback and meme makers all around the world were licking their lips. More than that one guy that woke up in 2021 and remembered that a dude paid him 10,000 bitcoin for a pizza in 2010. Gianluigi Donnarumma did an incredible job. Obviously he was the man of the match but for some reason they wanted to award it to Ousmane Dembele who as we can see over here clearly did not want to receive the award but as we can see they did eventually get the trophy to him. He's not too happy about this. I'm getting flashbacks of all those man of the match pictures from losing teams in the world cup and euros. Shame. You have to go ahead and applaud Aston Villa though. Emery set out to push up, be aggressive and throw the kitchen sink at it almost paid off. They can't really be too sad about that performance. They haven't been in the Champions League for how many decades at this point so it's a pretty good return. Inter Milan did what they needed to do. Their shape was brilliant for very large portions of that game. Bayern Munich threw everything they could forward but unfortunately it just wasn't enough to get the job done at the end of the day. Milan weren't flashy but they were clinical. Both goals coming from set pieces. Sadly for Bayern Munich the Spurs connection of Harry Kane and Eric Dier scoring you know it didn't work out for them. I thought Bayern were a lot better in this match particularly in comparison to last week's game at the Allianz. Their defense though still leaves a lot to be desired. Too bad for them. Inter Milan have guys like Lautaro Martinez on their team. Martinez is a true captain really. This guy just keeps scoring where it matters. Honestly very very impressive. And then finally Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund. Dortmund haven't had the best of seasons and I don't think many people expected them to put up that much of a fight at this game especially after last week's performance but they did. Sergio Gerasi scored a hat-trick. The man is a beast but the real man of the match performance in this game goes to Barcelona's defensive line. The number of times where Dortmund were caught off sides in situations where they were about to put the ball in the back of the net was too much to count. Actually you could count. It was like three or four times. You could count it. You could count it actually. That's my bad. Barcelona however suffered their first loss of 2025. Obviously not something that they would have wanted to happen but I mean there's no better place for it to happen in a tie where they've basically already won. And there we have it. Again some fantastic quarterfinal matchups there and some really tasty semi-final games to come up too. Inter Milan versus Barcelona and PSG versus Arsenal. Good times ahead. We will be there to watch them. We might even do a watch along for those games but we'll see. Anyway that's all for me today. Hope you guys enjoyed. Hope you're having a great day. Cheers and I will catch you in the next one.