Barcelona and Arsenal reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League

Following the results of the next return matches of the 1/8 finals of the Champions League, Barcelona and Arsenal advanced to the next stage. The Spanish giants defeated the Italian Napoli at home – 3:1, and the Londoners, having also beaten Porto at home in regular time – 1:0, secured success in the penalty shootout, the hero of which was their goalkeeper David Raya.

A draw in the first match of the Barcelona-Napoli pair hinted at intrigue in the return match. Of course, the chances of the Neapolitans were rated lower, but one should not forget that under the leadership of the new coach Francesco Calzone, appointed to this position three weeks ago, they never lost in five meetings, achieving a draw with the leader of the Italian championship Inter and beating the second “Juventus”.

The first half was full of interesting events. At first, Barcelona controlled the game. Having fielded two very young players at once, 16-year-old midfielder Lamin Amal and central defender Pau Kubarsi, she completely seized the initiative and quickly achieved her goal. First, the Spanish team created an ideal combination of several passes in the opposing half of the field, and Fermin Lopez, who was left completely alone near the penalty spot, opened the scoring after a pass from Raphinha. Napoli rushed to win back, but missed a high-speed counterattack in response. Yamal passed the ball to Rafinha, who hit the post, and Joao Cancelo, who was in the right place, immediately finished off the ball that bounced towards him.

Having conceded two goals by the 17th minute, Napoli did not look discouraged at all. He only increased the pressure on the opponent’s goal, but forward Victor Osimhen ran into an offside position a couple of times. But in the 30th minute there was no offside, and the guests elegantly dealt with the hosts’ defense. A logical continuation of Napoli’s attack was Matteo Politano’s pass to defender Amir Rrahmani, who sent the ball into the far corner with his left foot. Moreover, this was not the end of the matter before the break. Soon, Mario Rui hit his header under the crossbar, and Barcelona was saved only by the jumping ability of its goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

The break did not bring any fundamental changes to the development of events. Maintaining a high pace, Napoli continued to press on the opponents’ goal. In the 50th minute, Kubarsi touched Osimhen with his foot in his own penalty area, but Dutch referee Danny Makkele did not award a penalty. But the Italian champion failed to achieve the goal, and towards the end, having finally seized the initiative, Barcelona scored the third goal. A couple of minutes later, after the visiting Danish midfielder Jesper Lindström, in a favorable situation, was unable to hit the other goal with a header, the hosts’ main scorer Robert Lewandowski had his say, who was brought into a scoring position by Ilkay Gundogan and Sergi Roberto through their joint efforts. The result was 3:1, and Barcelona reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League for the first time since 2020, which can be considered an achievement. Let us remember that in the two previous draws she did not leave the group.

In the confrontation between London’s Arsenal and Porto, who took second place in the previous championships of their countries, the intrigue was even more pronounced. Here the English giants looked like the favorites, although the goal that Brazilian midfielder Wanderson Galeno scored at the very end of the first game allowed the Portuguese club to hope for final success.

The game turned out to be bright and nervous. Emotions ran high, and both head coaches – London’s Mikel Arteta and his colleague Sergio Conceicao – received a yellow card. And the only goal at the end of the first half was scored by Arsenal’s Belgian left winger Leandro Trossard, who used a superb pass from his captain, Norwegian Martin Odegaard.

Extra time changed nothing, and in the end everything was decided by a penalty shootout – the first in this Champions League play-off. Her hero was the Arsenal goalkeeper, the Spaniard David Raya, on loan from Brentford, who saved the shots of two Brazilians – first defender Wendell, and then Wanderson Galeno. Thus, the Londoners returned to the quarterfinals of the main European Cup after an even longer, 14-year break. The last time they were there was in the spring of 2010, when, under the leadership of Arsene Wenger and with Andrei Arshavin in the lineup, they lost to Barcelona on aggregate.

Evgeniy Fedyakov