ESPN writers Gab Marcotti, James Olley, Mark Ogden and Julien Laurens tackle some of the most burning questions after an excellent round of midweek action.
Arsenal 3-0 Real Madrid: Is there any way Carlo Ancelotti’s side can engineer another big comeback?
JAMES OLLEY: The issue for Real Madrid isn’t whether they can come back from three goals down — they can — but whether Arsenal choose to turn the second leg into the type of game that the reigning champions will probably hate.
It was noticeable in the first leg how infrequently Jurriën Timber chose to go forward, understandably so on the basis he had to guard against Vinícius Júnior‘s pace on the counter-attack, but doing so robbed Arsenal of the Martin Ødegaard–Bukayo Saka-Timber overload on the right-hand side that is often so effective. As it turned out, Saka could roast David Alaba on his own, but it was indicative of the balancing act that Arsenal had to strike being at home in the first leg to give them a chance of winning the tie. That won’t be the case with a 3-0 lead.
The general feeling is that to beat Madrid, you give them the ball because they are so deadly on the break and Arsenal have absolutely no need to make the running. Instead, they can be the team that sits back and picks Ancelotti’s side off when they feel the opportunity arises.
All that being said, if Madrid get an early goal, there’s no Gabriel Magalhães to steady the ship alongside William Saliba at centre-back and it’s easy to see how the nerves could settle in for Arsenal. After all, they haven’t been to the semifinals since 2009.
GAB MARCOTTI: We all know better than to write Real Madrid off, but obviously it will be a monumental task. Mikel Arteta’s version of Arsenal this season is far more solid defensively and they are comfortable without the ball. Equally, they have plenty of pace in wide areas to unleash on the counter in Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, and it almost doesn’t matter if Mikel Merino drops all the way into midfield off the ball rather than pretending he’s playing center-forward.
That said… to quote Mike Tyson (again): “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Real Madrid can conjure up goals out of thin air — after all, they’ve done it before, and the left side of Arsenal’s back four is likely to be made up of a teenager (Myles Lewis-Skelly) who really only played midfield until this year and Jakub Kiwior, who is, well, Jakub Kiwior. Meanwhile, attacking down the left you have Vinícius and Kylian Mbappé and often Jude Bellingham too.
Sitting too deep, too early, wouldn’t be too clever and if Madrid get the goal in the first 20-25 minutes and the Bernabéu’s “miedo escenico” (basically “stage fright,” but it sounds better in Spanish) sets in, we could have one of those nights where time seems to slow for Arsenal fans. (Or, worse, like in Ferris Bueller, actually go backwards.)
The tough part for Ancelotti is that, like we’ve said all year, this is not a well-constructed side. They chose to go into the season without anyone who could even pull off a C-list impersonation of Toni Kroos, leaving 39-year-old Luka Modric as the only creative passer in midfield. They chose not to add a central defender in January, even after Éder Militão‘s season-ending injury. They chose the Panini-sticker approach of adding attacking superstars, figuring Ancelotti will find a way to get them to fit together even though Vini, Mbappé and Rodrygo all prefer to play on the left.
And yet Real Madrid, despite playing badly and getting so much wrong, were beaten only by two absurd free kicks from a guy (Declan Rice) who had scored exactly zero direct free-kick goals in his previous 330+ games as a pro, and a rare Merino blast from outside the box. While Thibaut Courtois did have to make some superb saves, ultimately the three goals that beat them had a combined xG of 0.14. So yeah, this tie is far from over.
