After the 1-0 in the 90′ scored by Trossard, Arteta’s team goes through to penalties with the Gunners goalkeeper as the protagonist
They call him Manotas, for his extra-large hands. Those hands, with which he saved Galeno’s decisive penalty, are the ones that send Arsenal to the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the first time since 2010. David Raya is the hero of the Gunners, the one who breaks the taboo of the last 16 that this team which has a great desire to become great again and inherited from the previous management. A goal from Leo Trossard in the 41st minute was needed to erase the 1-0 defeat at Porto in the first leg, but to go further, to earn that passage to the next round that Arsenal were chasing as a fundamental step to reach the next step , penalties were needed. Where the Gunners made it 4 out of 4. And where Porto made a first mistake with Wendell, before Galeno, the scorer of the winning goal in the first leg, was hypnotized by Raya’s extra-large hands.
The keys
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The Spanish goalkeeper is the hero of a team that, like in the first leg, crashed against Porto’s destructive capacity. Trossard’s goal came in the only error of a defense managed brilliantly by Pepe, the first outfield player on the pitch in a Champions League match after his 41st birthday. Sergio Conceição’s team was, as in the first leg, very good at making Arsenal nervous (also helped by refereeing that was not up to the level of the Frenchman Turpin), at destroying the certainties of a team that is flying in the Premier League and which in the Champions League has but there’s a lot to prove. Having conceded the goal, Porto made no more mistakes, Arteta took too long to introduce Gabriel Jesus and give more liveliness to the attack and the match dragged on until penalties. Where the “dark arts”, as in England they call the tricks in which Porto proved to be masters, are no longer usable. What counts is the mental coolness of the person taking the spot kick and the goalkeeper’s skills between the posts. And, in the first Champions League match on penalties since the 2016 final, the extra-large hands of a goalkeeper on whom Arsenal bet and who with this night as a hero proved his worth for the Gunners.
the match
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Porto’s ability to destroy other people’s play seems to work throughout the first half, but in the 41st minute Ødegaard finds the right corridor to put Trossard beyond the defense and the Belgian takes the lead with a precise diagonal. We start again with Arsenal ahead 1-0 and in search of a double that would overturn the result of the first leg. The goal would also arrive, in the 68th minute with Ødegaard, but the referee annulled it due to a foul by Havertz on Pepe before the ball reached the Gunners captain. In the 83rd minute Arteta takes off Jorginho to put on Jesus, who less than a minute after coming on comes very close to doubling the score, but the result never changes and extra time is needed first and then penalties. Arsenal make it 4 out of 4 with Ødegaard, Havertz, Saka and then Rice; Porto misses the second penalty with Wendell. When Galen heads towards the spot, the Emirates whistles to exorcise the fear. When Raya flies to intercept the shot to his left, the Arsenal fans explode into a scream that has remained stuck in their throats for almost three hours. And they celebrate those Champions League quarterfinals that they have been waiting for for 14 years.
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