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Jose Mourinho may be far from the most popular manager in north London but he can still make valuable footballing observations on occasion.In March 2018, he was Manchester United manager and Sevilla had knocked his side out of the Champions League, beating them 2-1 at Old Trafford in the round of 16. In a press conference three days later, the Portuguese embarked on a rant about “football heritage”.
While some may view his infamous 12-minute monologue as comical or self-serving, his dissection of Manchester United’s performances in Europe over the seven years before his arrival was critical. It painted a picture of the rot at the club in that moment but also provided an objective view of their progress from which other teams could learn.
“The last time Manchester United reached the Champions League final, which didn’t happen a lot of times, was 2011…” Mourinho said. “In seven years with four different managers, once not qualified for Europe. Twice out at the group phase. And the best was a quarter-final. This is football heritage.”
Mikel Arteta knows about this Mourinho phrase and while he would prefer to use it “in relation to big trophies”, on Friday he recognised that clubs “have to start somewhere'”.
That is what the last few years have been about in Europe for both Arsenal’s men and women’s teams.
Arteta’s men spent seven years out of the Champions League and reached the quarter-final for the first time in 14 years when they returned to the competition last season. Meanwhile, Arsenal Women became the first — and thus far only — English side to win the Champions League in 2007 but spent five seasons out of the competition between 2015 and 2019 and took a leap by reaching the semi-finals in 2022-23, and have done so again this term.
This season is the first since 2010 that both teams have reached the Champions League quarter-finals, and the parallels don’t end there.
Both drawn against Real Madrid, the home legs at the Emirates Stadium were eerily similar. The men and women went in 0-0 at half-time after strong starts only to both run away as 3-0 winners with two goals from an England international and another from a Spaniard.
Arteta and his squad still have a job to do in the second leg in Madrid next week but building on last year’s return to Europe’s top table has been exactly what this year’s campaign was about.
Arsenal’s men played 10 Champions League matches last season. They won five — four at home and one away. In the group stage, they scored 12 goals and conceded zero at home, scored four and conceded four away, and lost both knockout away games 1-0. They have played 11 Champions League matches this season, winning eight and losing just one (away at Inter). In this year’s new league phase, with two extra matches, they won four home games again but improved away with three wins.
Speaking on the biggest lessons taken from last season before thrashing PSV 7-1, Arteta said: “We have played very differently home and away in the last year, especially in Europe. We have been much more consistent, we have scored a lot of goals, we have conceded hardly anything.”
Before the first-leg against Real Madrid, Arsenal ranked first in the Champions League for xG against per game (0.88) while only Inter (0.2) had conceded fewer goals per game (0.6). Arsenal had also led for longer than any other team in the competition this season (568 minutes overall), while only Inter (five minutes) had trailed for fewer minutes than them (65) this term.
That defensive solidity had given Arsenal a platform but they still needed to take an extra step into the unknown. They did so en route to facing Bayern Munich in last year’s quarter-finals by beating Porto on penalties in the previous round.
Arteta spoke about the “aura” and ‘”presence” that teams like the Bayern and the Milan sides of the 2000s transmitted through their body language, having built that ‘football heritage’ for themselves. Asked at the time how to develop something similar for Arsenal, his answer was simple: “Winning and being more sure about yourself with experience”. Self-assurance and a sense of belonging on this stage surged through Arsenal during Tuesday’s 3-0 win over Real Madrid.
Arsenal crashed out of the Champions League in the round of 16 for seven consecutive seasons in the 2010s but now they have a quarter-final first-leg win to celebrate. Even if there are still 90 minutes at the Bernabeu to play on Wednesday, they have broken new ground as a group and should potentially looking at the period between 2005 and 2009 for further inspiration — rather than just that memorable night in Madrid in February 2006.
That four-year period was arguably Arsenal’s best in Europe. As well as reaching the final in 2006, they went to the semi-finals in 2009. They were five minutes away from a semi-final in 2008 too, only to concede two late goals against Liverpool at Anfield.
For some perspective, Bukayo Saka was aged between three and seven during those years. Nights like the Madrid win have been a long time coming.
Four years to the day before last Tuesday’s triumph, Arsenal drew 1-1 with Slavia Prague in the Europa League quarter-finals. They even endured a year out of European competition after a second successive eighth-placed finish, but have now been Premier League title challengers for three years and reached back-to-back Champions League quarter-finals — achievements that speak to some of the other observations made by Mourinho in that infamous ‘football heritage’ monologue.
“When I arrived in Real Madrid, do you know how many players played a quarter-final of the Champions League?” he asked rhetorically. “Xabi Alonso with Liverpool, Iker Casillas with Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo with Manchester United — all the others, not even a quarter-final. That’s football heritage.”
Before last season’s last-16 matches against Porto, Kai Havertz was the only player in Arteta’s starting line-up who had previously started a Champions League knockout game. Now, much of this group are learning together and that should serve them well.
Renee Slegers’ women’s side have not broken new ground in the same way as Arteta’s men. They are preparing for their second Champions League semi-final in three seasons but, like their male counterparts, are facing their toughest task in recent European memory.
Later this month, Arsenal will play Lyon, who have won the Champions League a record eight times and been runners-up a record three times. The French side were the last team other than Barcelona to win the competition in 2022 and only lost last year’s final courtesy of two second-half goals. If anyone has ‘football heritage’ in women’s European football, it’s them.
Arsenal could be helped by their shared experiences of recent seasons, however. Progress to this year’s semi-finals has been almost identical to their last appearance in 2023. This year, they overturned a 2-0 away defeat by Real Madrid by winning 3-0 at the Emirates. Two years ago, they brought a one-goal deficit from Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena to north London and scored two unanswered goals to go through.
That Bayern win still stuck out to Leah Williamson at the start of this season’s European campaign. In September, she referred to it as “the first time I felt the real magic of the Champions League”.
Speaking again before their second-leg comeback against Madrid, Williamson said: “We’re very lucky because that stage… isn’t foreign to us. The experience of overturning the last quarter-final against Bayern Munich comes in handy. Anybody that was involved in that game will take confidence from that knowing that we know how to do it.”
That know-how proved essential as Slegers’ side went for Real from the first minute. Even if they didn’t score in the first half, the momentum was there. All it took was one, and then goals started to flow. Football heritage at play, perhaps?
Chelsea have come closest to dethroning Arsenal as the only English side to win the women’s Champions League. They reached the final in 2021 and have been semi-finalists for three successive seasons, losing to Barcelona each time. They are pushing their own glass ceiling waiting for a breakthrough.
Neither Arsenal’s men nor women were serious contenders for European trophies at the start of the 2020s. The last few years have represented the start of a new chapter for both teams on the continent.
The next couple of weeks will show how ready they are for these nights but the important thing will ensuring both sides of the club are repeat visitors to the latter stages of the Champions League.
Reflecting on his side’s chances of reaching the semi-finals of the men’s tournament on Friday, Arteta made it clear which that he does not want Arsenal to be one of the clubs who “appear now and again”.
“Those nights like we had the other day (the 3-0 win over Real Madrid) are going to be remembered for many years,” he said. “And that’s the kind of night that gives you belief. It gives purpose to a competition. It brings joy and then it prepares you for the next one because you are waiting to experience a feeling like this again. And that’s the most important thing, in my opinion: that people are looking forward to experiencing this kind of emotion with us.”
The “purpose” Arteta talks of has returned for Arsenal in the Premier League. They are unfortunate that injuries have hamstrung them in the league this season but there is now renewed purpose to their European campaign for the spring. His side facing Real Madrid at the Bernabeu and Slegers’ women facing Lyon will be major tasks but they are occasions that Arsenal need to embrace in order to continue to grow.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Arsenal, Champions League, UK Women's Football, Premier League
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