Champions League: frustration, anger, disappointment: arsenal and his loser image

How does the Arsenal FC still want to achieve the final of the Champions League? “We created a lot of frustration, anger and disappointment,” said coach Mikel Areteta before the semi-final second leg at Paris Saint-Germain (Wednesday, 9:00 p.m./DAZN). Now it is time to convert exactly that into a “great performance”.

With 0: 1, his team lost the first game against the French champion a week ago. And that’s why Artetas also take powerful words with them many arsenal fans. The Gunners are fed up to watch every year at the end of a season how other clubs are given the trophies.

FC Arsenal has one of the most modern stadiums in the world and a 120 million euro transfer like Declan Rice in his team. In the Champions League quarter-finals you even threw the defending champion Real Madrid (3-0, 2: 1) from the competition. Nevertheless, the club from London is liable. All three European Cup final have been lost since 2000. Three more semi-final ko in the Champions and the Europa League were added.

Like a “lanky teenager”

“FC Arsenal is a big club. But not on an international stage,” said TV expert and long-time England professional Dietmar Hamann in a “kicker” interview. The “New York Times” even mocked: In a Champions League semi-final with PSG, FC Barcelona and Inter Milan, Arsenal acts like a “lanky teenager in a room full of well-looking 21-year-old”.

Two big names have made up for this: the Spanish trainer Arteta. And the German world champion per Mertesacker. Both came to London together as a player in 2011, and both continue to work for the club after the end of their active career.

Shaped by Arsène Wenger

Mertesacker took over the management of the youth academy in 2018. Areta returned as head coach in December 2019. Previously, the 43-year-old had learned this job for three and a half years as an assistant for Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.

Both are very strongly shaped by Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal trained from 1996 to 2018 and sat on the stands at the first leg against PSG. “If you look at success in our time, we played a few Champions League season and won a few FA trophies,” said Mertesacker of the PA news agency. “That was okay, but not outstanding. Now we want to build something, which may be more successful in the future.”

If you look at your intermediate balance sheet, it almost applies: it is good and promising – but not yet outstanding. After six years of abstinence, Areta attributed Arsenal to the Champions League in 2023. This season alone, Myles Lewis-Skelly (18) and Ethan Nwaneri (18) made two top talents from Mertesacker’s academy in ARTETAS professional team.

Areteta wants to “create something special”

But a 18-year-old José-Mourinho quote (“The manager is great. The team has a great future. But they don’t win anything.”) The new arsenal generation will not get rid of for the time being. Two years ago, she was number one of the Premier League on 27 out of 38 match days-and ended up playing a five-point lead over Manchester City. So far there have been too many long -term injuries (Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus) and too many transfers that have not been taken (Riccardo Calafiori, Raheem Sterling).

“You have to create something special in this competition to have the right to stand in the final,” said Areteta before the semi-final second leg of the Champions League. “And the moment to do that is now in Paris!”