LONDON — A tightly fought Champions League tie hangs in the balance. Moments have come and gone for both teams. You can sense this is going right to the death. Then along comes one of the legitimate world class talents to blow the whole game open. Before you know it everything has changed. There’s a chasm separating the sides.
Tonight the role of Vinicius Junior will be played by Declan Rice.
This is now a man forever assured of his status in north London folklore. In what is surely the greatest night this ground has ever seen, his free kicks — plural — felled the great titan of European football. If you were picking any team to make a comeback, you’d put them in Real Madrid colors. Try convincing any of those delirious 57,000 that that is about to happen though.
After all, this triumph is as ripe in narrative as so many of Madrid’s have been over the years. For the last three days the Spanish capital has been overwhelmed by fear of the great Arsenal set piece machine. Two of the first five questions for Thibaut Courtois in his pre-match press conference were on how he and his teammates might deal with the aerial bombardment that would come their way. Such were the jitters you felt a compulsion to sprint to the front of room and shout at the top of your voice “Gabriel’s not here lads.”
It didn’t solve the Madrid jitters, but there was at least one safe space for the visitors. Arsenal will bully you from wide free kicks. They’ll kill you at corners. But they can’t hurt you when they shoot from a free kick. You had to go back to September 2021 for the last time they bent one in top bins, and most of Martin Odegaard’s attempts since had hardly set the world alight. Rice’s ball-striking off corners had been enough to have supporters hankering for him to have a go infield, but he had never scored one before tonight.
And so there was no great sense of anticipation when Bukayo Saka had drawn a foul on David Alaba, the nearest the battle-weary left back got to his man in the 74 minutes Arsenal’s star boy was able to drag himself through. He and Rice stood over the ball but there were leagues between the ball and Courtois, already proving himself to be at his springy best. Bend it like Dec if you want, for all the good it will do you.
Steadily a wave of delirium rose up the West Stand. No one believed what they saw. It hadn’t really sunk in as Rice slid to his feet by the corner flag. In this season of all seasons, something would come up. VAR would spot something. Someone’s hamstring would spontaneously combust.
Then eyes moved to the big screens. A gasp then the sort of applause that in theory doesn’t feel appropriate for the goal that gives you a stunning lead over the kings of Europe. Then again, what else can you do? This felt like Beckham against Greece, Roberto Carlos at Le Tournoi. For years to come, they’ll be shouting Rice’s name across the playing fields of north London whenever anyone goes to hit one.
Not least because he proceeded to do it again. This time Courtois was ready for the prodigious whip that had taken the ball around his wall and into his near post. What he wasn’t prepared for was the thunder crack in his side of the goal, the purest hit flying into the top left corner.
Arsenal’s two goal lead was richly deserved. They had got in front and smelled blood. From the moment Rice’s first hit the net they were hunting another. The press, which in retrospect looked more like a patient stalk, ratcheted up a notch. The outstanding Myles Lewis-Skelly drove ever further forward. Only desperate defending on the line denied first Mikel Merino, then Rice. Madrid don’t get scared, do they? They looked it. And yes it is only half time in the tie but Arsenal should swagger back to the locker room, all the more so after Merino added a third.
Because Arsenal knew when they got their noses in front that they were good enough to stay there. There had been a few loose moments in the first half that handed chances to Kylian Mbappe, iron those out and there was nothing much for Madrid to do. They ended the second half with as many shots total as Rice had taken from free kicks. Perhaps the most instructive moment for next week in the Santiago Bernabeu was Vinicius getting the ball in position to drive forward, seeing Jurrien Timber and William Saliba ahead of him and thinking, nope, someone else can get this attack going.
Arsenal had cowed their opponents, swinging a tie at the business end of the Champions League significantly, perhaps decisively, in their favor. They had ridden their luck on occasion and delivered multiple moments of unforgettable quality when they needed to. Wait… isn’t that the thing Real Madrid do?
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