Arsenal Are Aces For A Night; Shakhtar Shock Roma

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On a historic night for Arsenal in the Champions’ League, they topped the perceived & general consensus best team in the world at the moment, FC Barcelona, 2-1.  In the other match tonight in the Champions’ League, Shakhtar upset Roma, 3-2, to provide a night & indeed, a week full of ECL upsets.

Arsenal 2-1 Barcelona
In a game that tempted & teased to be a spectacle of attacking football in the pre-game build up, along with a lot of predictions of Arsenal’s doom, the actual display on hand didn’t let the football purists down.  The game started with Arsenal outplaying Barcelona in the opening 15 minutes but following a few good attacking moves that didn’t yield any goals, Barcelona started to exert their clinical passing & quick movement game.  Soon there after, Barcelona were in control & soon after that, Barcelona were up 1-0 on a typical Barca goal.

David Villa slotted home following an expert, defense-splitting pass by Lionel Messi.  There were several more similar moves by Barca but no goals came on the end of them (including a narrow miss by Messi just prior to the goal) though they just as easily could’ve been up 3-0 going into the halftime break as dominating as they were.

But Arsenal played much, much better in the second half, especially in defense, though they were nearly sliced apart on multiple occasions.  Laurent Koscielny, a defender who gets a lot of flak, played arguably a Man of the Match performance though some (including myself) would’ve given that honor to 19-year old, Jack Wilshere, who played a mammoth game in midfield, belying his youth with another in a string of impressive, recent performances where he held the ball well, passed well, was excellent positionally & fought for balls all night long.  If this is the future of Arsenal’s midfield, I am quite excited at the potential.

However, despite Arsenal playing better, Barcelona at times would be able to keep possession almost at will & were honestly  looked to have begun becoming a bit bored & content with the 1-0 lead.  With 20 minutes left, it looked a little dire for Arsenal.

But up stepped Robin Van Persie who has been in terrific goal-scoring form of late.  He had spurned a couple of good chances earlier in the match including the 1st real chance of the match but redeemed himself with a rocket of a shot beating Victor Valdes low & to the near post from an incredibly tight angle following good work from substitute Andriy Arshavin on the left & deft, little chip into the box by Gaël Clichy.  The goal was reminiscent of Maicon’s from the World Cup just from the opposite side.  There was much after the match of whether Van Persie meant to do it or not or whether he was crossing… from an Arsenal point of view, who freaking cares?  The ball ended up in the back of the net for 1-1!

Just five minutes later, Arsenal had their winner as the goal seemed to have rocked Barcelona on their back heels a bit though they continued to press forward.  In fact, an attacking move of theirs that broke down following a good defensive stop by Koscielny then led to some quick tic-tac-toe passing before Cesc Fàbregas delivered a beautiful ball into space for Samir Nasri who stormed into the box & then squared for Arshavin to ram home as the Gunners caught Barca on the break.  Time seemed to stand still when Arshavin hit his shot & only Martin Tyler’s cry of “AAAARSHAAAAVVVIIIIIIIIIIIIINNN!!!!!” cut through the dream penetratingly enough to snap me back to reality in time see the ball pop the inside of the goal netting.  It was one of those moments why we watch sports in the 1st place.  Goosebumps?  Check.  Hair on the back of your standing up on end?  Check.  We won? Cheeeeeeeyaaaaeah, well, not quite.  There was still work to do for Arsenal in the final minutes but they were able to hold on keeping Barca’s late attacks out for a truly, massive result.

Obviously, I’m over the moon with the result & there’s still a ton of work to do for Arsenal to overcome the Barca to win the tie on aggregate.  However, it feels damn good to be “top of the world,” so to speak even if it is for only a night or three.  This game should also be required viewing for soccer/football fans- plenty of attacking play, the match had a great verve & energy to it.  It was spirited without malice, it was played without hardly any of the “gamesmanship” of diving & trying to get people sent off that we’ve grown so accustomed to in soccer/football today.

/ waxing poetic in football/soccer sanctimony

AS Roma 2-3 Shakhtar Donetsk
As predicted by yours truly (though I wasn’t man enough to pick my club’s winner over Barca!), Shakhtar got 3 goals from 3 Brazilians to earn a surprising (in some circles) road win in the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.  Rome had the lead in the 28th minute through Simone Perrotta but Jadson equalized only a minute later with a curling effort from outside the box.  Douglas Costa gave Shakhtar a 2-1 lead in the 1st half & it was 3-1 just before the halftime break when Luiz Adriano capitalized on an error by former Liverpool player, John Arne Riise.  Roma’s Jeremy Menez hit a terrific, curling effort to give Roma consolation goal that gives the Giallorossi a fighting chance in the second leg, though there work will be cut out for them.

FA Cup
Wigan 0-1 Bolton Wanderers
A second half Ivan Klasnic goal was enough to see the Trotters through to the Round of 16 as they downed Wigan at the DW Stadium.  Bolton continued their run of good form & shouldn’t be underestimated in the knockout competition form here on out.