Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal visited the José Alvalade Stadium, home of Sporting Lisbon, this March 9 to play the first leg of the Europa League round of 16. The English rotated different players, where Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel Magalhães, Martin Ødegaard, Eddie Nketiah and Smith Roweno were starters; while the Portuguese used all the heavy artillery.
The first half of the match was very balanced, with both teams creating chances and defending strongly. The effort of the players of both teams was rewarded. The first goals came from set pieces for both sides. Annotations by Saliba and Goncalo respectively.
The second half started at a faster pace, with Arsenal looking to be dominating the game. However, Sporting Lisboa defended well and kept pace with the English team. After 55 minutes, Sporting Lisboa had a good chance to score a goal, but A cross managed to stop the shot with a spectacular sweep, but on the next play Paulinho scored after a low pass into the center of the area.
Finally, Arsenal tied the score 7 minutes later with a shot from outside the area by Zinchenko that was deflected by the Japanese, Hidemasa Morita, who ended up scoring an own goal.
Both showed great fighting spirit and a high level of play, which promises an exciting second leg. The coaches and players will have to work hard to improve for the next game, but there is definitely a lot to applaud in the performance of both teams in this first meeting in the Europa League.
Mikel Arteta He commented that there were many casualties before the game and that they did not give their best version, but that part of the tournament is overcoming complications.
“We are not going to give up on this competition. Today we had to face some problems that we had in the last few days where we lost some players. We lost four or three or our forwards, but in this competition if you want to go through, you are going to have to go through difficult moments. We knew it, we are alive, everything is on the line at the Emirates and hopefully we will play better and deserve to win the game”, commented the Spanish coach. @mundiario
