While Arsenal Women were celebrating their place as Europe\u2019s top team at the end of the 2024\u201325 season, the men\u2019s side were left to confront the gaps in their trophy cabinet. Mikel Arteta\u2019s team go into this campaign hopeful of going all the way, with just 90 minutes separating them from a spot in the final.<\/p>\n
The last time the men reached a European Cup final was in 2006. Ars\u00e8ne Wenger\u2019s side became the first London team to reach a Champions League final when they travelled to the Stade de France to face Barcelona. Arsenal had progressed through a weak group and then eliminated Real Madrid, Juventus and Villarreal in the knockouts without conceding a single goal.<\/p>\n
Barcelona arrived with a line-up featuring Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto\u2019o and Deco, with Xavi and Andr\u00e9s Iniesta on the bench. Lionel Messi was in his first season as a starter but did not play beyond the round of 16 after a season-ending hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
Barcelona starting XI: Vald\u00e9s; Oleguer, M\u00e1rquez, Puyol, Van Bronckhorst; Edmilson, Deco, Van Bommel; Giuly, Eto\u2019o, Ronaldinho.<\/p>\n
Arsenal starting XI: Lehmann; Ebou\u00e9, Tour\u00e9, Campbell, Cole; Pir\u00e8s, Gilberto, F\u00e0bregas, Hleb; Ljungberg; Henry.<\/p>\n
The final swung early. Jens Lehmann became the first player in the history of the European Cup to be sent off in the final after hauling Eto\u2019o to the ground outside the box, an event that erased a late Ludovic Giuly goal which was pulled back because of the red card. Despite going down to ten men, Arsenal took the lead when Sol Campbell headed home a Thierry Henry free kick shortly before half-time.<\/p>\n
Barcelona levelled in the 76th minute through Eto\u2019o and took the lead four minutes later when substitute Juliano Belletti scored the winner. That result left Arsenal as the first team to finish as runners-up in the Champions League, UEFA Cup and Cup Winners\u2019 Cup.<\/p>\n
Arsenal have lost three major European finals: the 1999\u201300 UEFA Cup final (defeat to Galatasaray on penalties) and the 2018\u201319 Europa League final, a 4\u20131 loss to Chelsea in which Olivier Giroud opened the scoring and which proved to be Eden Hazard\u2019s final appearance for the Blues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal’s last Champions League final came in 2006 at Stade de France, where they lost 2-1. Campbell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[1162,1641],"class_list":["post-13638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-analytics","tag-european-finals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}