Soccer

Arsenal arrive in Munich with destiny and opportunity still in their hands

Sunday’s defeat by Aston Villa has added jeopardy, and Mikel Arteta knows ousting Bayern will take some doing

Arsenal's Mikel Arteta at a press conference on the eve of their Champions League quarter-final second-leg match against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, on Tuesday. Photograph: Michaela Stache/AFP
Arsenal's Mikel Arteta at a press conference on the eve of their Champions League quarter-final second-leg match against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, on Tuesday. Photograph: Michaela Stache/AFP
Wed Apr 17 2024 - 06:00

Bayern Munich (2) v Arsenal (2), Allianz Arena

Wednesday, 8pm (live on TNT Sports 2 and LiveScore)

Arsenal landed in a gusty Munich aiming to show they have not been blown off course. A week is a long time in football, and it was only last Tuesday, when Mikel Arteta’s players emerged for their first leg to a rapturous reception at the Emirates, that they were being favoured to dethrone a wobbly Bayern Munich. The picture has clouded since then, and there is a sense of being caught between absolutes when the rematch kicks off on Wednesday night.

If Arsenal overcome their depleted hosts they will have achieved an outcome for the ages and can soon savour a first Champions League semi-final since 2009. Should Bayern make home advantage and elite level lineage count, those hovering to sound the death knell on their season will form an orderly queue. At this point of a campaign the lightest breeze can resemble a hurricane, as the reaction to Aston Villa’s victory in north London amply showed on Sunday.

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Is everything really on the line for Arsenal in Bavaria, where Bayern tend to step out with a strut whatever the prevailing conditions? Dwelling on that notion would mean raking back over the possible consequences of a painful defeat to Aston Villa and Arteta had no interest in that. “Throw the game away, the one we played a few days ago,” he said. “Because regardless of that result it is going to have no impact on what’s going to happen tomorrow (Wednesday).”

Lumbering any negative baggage into Allianz Arena would surely be fatal for Arsenal. Arteta was asked whether the looming spectre of last April, when their title chase collapsed shortly after defeat to Sporting in the Europa League, might play on minds given the damage sustained on Sunday. It seems slightly unfair to draw direct parallels: for one thing Arsenal are patently competing strongly in the last eight of the Champions League even if the pursuit of Manchester City feels ominously familiar. But the narrative will swirl if they falter here, and the manager admitted there is no sure-fire way of protecting his players from the noise.

“I cannot control that,” he said. “I cannot take their phones and TVs away, or the people around them. We didn’t lose anything last year because we didn’t win anything. First of all you have to win it and then you can lose it. What we had was an unbelievable journey against the best team in the world. We are not satisfied, we want to be better, and that’s the level we are competing with.”

For all the omens, good or bad, there is little reason to play Arsenal’s chances down. Even if nobody in their camp will say it the absences of Serge Gnabry, Kingsley Coman and Alphonso Davies should hamstring Bayern’s offensive power significantly. Nothing about last week’s offering suggested chances will be impossible to come by at the other end.

Plenty has been made of the visitors’ relative inexperience but they have shown this season, at both Anfield and the Etihad, that they are able to shapeshift their way to results at previously impenetrable citadels.

“There are lots of things we can do to write our story very differently tomorrow,” Arteta said. “I want my team to be themselves regardless of the stadium.”

He did, though, dangled the caveat that Bayern might force them into contingencies. They may not be able to rip into Thomas Tuchel’s side as they did early on in north London, taking the lead and threatening briefly to run away with it; they will need to show the resilience that earned a point at City, rather than the defensive carelessness that has resurfaced in their last two outings. A chess match and burning of the midnight oil cannot be ruled out.

Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard trained on Tuesday and should both be fit to start. Arteta would hardly have wanted injury problems of his own, and his biggest quandary might lie at left back, where Jakub Kiwior struggled in the first meeting and Oleksandr Zinchenko toiled to audible disapproval from the home crowd against Villa. Perhaps Takehiro Tomiyasu would be the soundest option against a Bayern side that retain a potentially matchwinning threat out wide.

Should Arsenal prevail it will be their most significant result in Europe since the 2-0 win over AC Milan – whose old guard were creaking but nonetheless entered the tie as competition holders – in the 2007/08 round of 16. Perhaps that, more than anything, demonstrates the line between feast and famine that they tread in Munich. The consequences could be transformative, and Arteta was happy to jump on that particular piece of hype.

“Absolutely, it would be unbelievable. If we make it happen tomorrow and we’re in the semi-final, we’ll be in a really high emotional state with something that we haven’t achieved in 15 years. That’s the opportunity.”

Arsenal have their chance to shape the weather.

– Guardian