- Arsenal and Real Madrid – two different ways of building up to the next game
- Real Madrid face negativity but get a positive result. Arsenal get accolades and bore us stupid.
By Tony Attwood
What one really wants to hear ahead of a big match is that the opposition are arguing among themselves, and that indeed is what the English newspapers are feeding us today. Whether it is made-up nonsense of the type we often get, or actually true in this case, is hard to say, but the Telegraph is full of “reports in Spain that tensions within the Madrid camp have boiled over in recent days, with Bellingham alleged to have clashed with defender Antonio Rudiger in training.”
But, well, yes, there are always tensions, always clashes, and they don’t necessarily mean very much. But it is fun to read about clashes within the opposition, rather than tales of turmoil and chaos within Arsenal, which is what we normally get.
Speaking about it, Bellingham is reported to have said, “For every negative interaction you see, there’s 20 positive interactions.” But it seems he didn’t tell us what those positives were. The media however have generally pointed out that Real Mad have not overcome a 0-3 defeat in the first leg to win a two-legged European tie in the past.
On the other hand Arteta talked about consistency, and starting “to dominate in European competition,” which I must say would be fun for some of us older supporters who have been through a lot of European disappointments and just one Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and one Cup Winners Cup triumph. It feels like time to add something else.
But it is not just as a manager that Arteta is lacking in European trophies. Although as a player he won the FA Cup twice with Arsenal, and the Scottish league and cup treble with Rangers in 2003, he didn’t get a European trophy himself in his playing days which probably makes this even more important to him tonight (if such a thing is possible).
Arteta of course is always good for a quote and in the build-up to this match and for this one there was no exception. He said, “When you want to create history, build a story, first of all you have to be excited, really prepared and really convinced about what you want to achieve. Then it is about insisting, going step by step.”
And to help with that we do have the good news that Ben White and Thomas Partey are available for the game, even though Jorginho is not.
Speaking of the game, Arteta noted that Real Madrid “will try to take the game to a different place to where we want. We have to take the game to where we want and then adapt quickly to any scenario that takes us somewhere else…
“We have to dominate things; be brave, be dominant, determined, to have the conviction that we can be better than them and win the game. That is clear in our mind and that is how we have to play.”
Meanwhile, the media are slowly (very slowly) waking up to the fact that Arsenal have not conceded three or more goals in a game for the last 79 matches. That shows a certain preparedness and solidarity about the team and about the way the team has been set up.
There is of course a lot of talk about Real Mad’s experience in Europe and Arsenal being mere newcomers to this sort of thing, but that is just the normal journo chatter. What they forget is that in qualifying for 19 successive seasons for entry into the Champions League Arsenal created a record among English teams. In fact only one club anywhere has surpassed that, and that is Real Madrid.
And Arsenal hold other records too – for example, Thierry Henry holds the record for the most appearances in the competition (89), as well as being Arsenal’s top European goalscorer. And although the 1-7 win against PSV was enjoyable in the extreme, Arsenal have twice surpassed that with two 7-0 victories, once away to Standard Liege in the Cup Winners Cup and once at home to Slavia Prague in the Champions League of 2007/8.
Arsenal also hold the European club competition record for the most consecutive clean sheets with ten, set between September 2005 and May 2006. But these things are, by and large, not mentioned by a media, as ever in awe of the doings of Madrid. We would of course expect nothing else.
Villa have been deservedly praised for their fightback against PSV and received sympathy for their narrow defeat.
In contrast, the usual media suspects and pundits are showing their appetite for RM being able to overturn the first leg. Then Arsenal will be described as bottlers without a winning mentality, with renewed calls for Mr. Arteta to be sacked.
Unai Emery is rightly praised for his coaching ability and achievment at Villa, but was ridiculed when at Arsenal.
UEFA seem to have also taken sides, with Arsenal not getting the home-leg second and now the agreement for RM to close the stadium roof. Clear;y, we were not expected to take a first-leg lead, so will now be playing on a tilted pitch
I note UEFA have appointed a French referee, François Letexier, for the game. I note that in his 19 club games this season (12 league and 7 European) he’s given 9 red cards. That’s one every other game. In the Champions League he’s also given five penalties in just six games.
Six of the nine red cards have been against the away team but strangely, the majority of the penalties have been given to the away team. I don’t know about anybody else but I fear UEFA have appointed him on the strength of him giving a high number of penalties per game (6th highest of 45 refs in the Champions League) and a high number of red cards per game (also 6th highest). It’s gonna be hard to give them against RM in the Bernabeu I would guess!
It reminds me of when we lost away at Barcelona a few years ago in dubious circumstances, the ref, who was Swiss, had been criticised heavily in the Swiss press earlier the same season for a bad decision at (I believe) Young Boys. His excuse that day was that he felt intimidated by the crowd. So naturally the perfect choice for a game at Camp Nou…..if you want a home win!!
I know we’ve had a good deal with European refs this season but I also recall the two Spanish sides getting some highly dubious results in the past and I certainly don’t trust UEFA not to do their best to get the results that are best for the TV ratings! My only hope is that if the ref shows any national bias, he would prefer PSG to meet Arsenal rather than Real…..who knows?!
What I would love to know is why there is this additional bias against Arsenal. We certainly see if in the Premier League with both the record of the referees (ie do they give lots of home wins or away wins) and with penalties for and against Arsenal. If PGMO were straight and above board surely they would open up and explain how Arsenal get certain referees.