How Tottenham can help Arsenal reach the Champions League final

Evening Standard

·7 mai 2025

How Tottenham can help Arsenal reach the Champions League final

The Gunners tonight must pull off a rare feat that only two teams have ever managed

Mikel Arteta and Heung-min Son

Vidéos OneFootball

London Standard

Arsenal must tonight achieve the previously unachievable if they are to reach the Champions League final.

A 1-0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in last week's semi-final first leg at the Emirates Stadium has left the Gunners with a rescue mission on their hands in the French capital.

Ousmane Dembele scored the only goal, silencing the Emirates crowd inside four minutes, before PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma denied Gabriel Martinelli and then Leandro Trossard with fine saves.

Bradley Barcola and Goncalo Ramos could, and probably should, have inflicted further damage in the closing stages, but the hosts will have an advantage, albeit narrow, for the second leg tonight.

Arsenal have never before overturned a home first-leg deficit in Europe. Five times they have lost the first leg of a tie at home, and five times they have been knocked out of Europe.

Even when losing the first leg away from home, only two out of 11 times have the Gunners made amends in front of their own fans.

It's do or die for the Gunners tonight, and they could look to their north London neighbours for how to stay alive.

Tottenham celebrate reaching the Champions League final in 2019

Getty Images

Only six times in Champions League history have a team overturned a first-leg defeat when away from home in the second leg.

PSG are the two most recent examples; beating Liverpool in the last-16 stage of this season, having done the same to Barcelona last season in the quarter-finals.

If we narrow the parameters further, only two teams have ever done it to reach a Champions League final: Ajax and Tottenham.

And it was Ajax who Spurs bested in a thrilling 2019 semi-final second leg in Amsterdam as Lucas Moura scored a second-half hat-trick to send Mauricio Pochettino & Co. into the final.

Spurs had lost the first leg 1-0 in one of their first games at their new stadium, and then went 2-0 down in the first half of the second leg. Moura scored twice before the hour mark to level matters on the night and then again with the last kick of the game to seal Spurs’ progress on away goals.

No one from the red side of north London will admit it, but the Gunners will be looking to emulate Tottenham tonight as they aim to reach their first Champions League final in 19 years.