Just how easy was Arsenal's route to the Champions League final?

Analysis

Martin Macdonald | Writer

Content writer covering football, formula 1 and movies

Any team that reaches the Champions League final after a gruelling campaign deserves their spot in the showcase occasion, but when you look at the journeys of both Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain, it's evident that the Gunners had a much easier run to the match in Budapest.

Arsenal are looking to win their first ever European Cup/Champions League, while PSG are aiming to defend their crown, having demolished Inter in the 2025 final a year ago.

Both sides are domestic champions in their respective leagues in England and France and have widely contrasting playing styles which should make for an extremely interesting encounter this coming Saturday.

They were both Pot A clubs when the league phase draw was made and Arsenal made a real impression, winning eight games out of eight, scoring 23 and conceding just four. In that league phase they played Athletic Club, Olympiacos, Atletico Madrid, Slavia Prague, Bayern Munich, Club Brugge, Inter and Kairat Almaty.

Though there are minnows in that list, to sweep away the likes of Atletico, Bayern and Inter is no mean feat. Indeed, two of those clubs would go on to reach the semi-finals.

If you contrast this with PSG, who had to face Premier League opposition twice in a row in Chelsea and Liverpool, albeit two poor Chelsea and Liverpool sides, Arsenal had the easier run.

There's no question that PSG had the touger semi, playing in one of the games of the season against Bayern Munich which ended 5-4 before holding onto a 1-1 draw in Germany for the return leg.

PSG, perhaps saving their best form for the knockout stages, only managed a playoff place where they faced and defeated Monaco over two legs. In the league phase, they played Atalanta, Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Tottenham, Athletic Club, Sporting CP and Newcastle.

They league phase is designed by UEFA in such a way that bigger teams can afford to lose a match or two and still go far and that was the case for PSG, who eventually reached the final despite winning only 50% of their league phase matches.

Statistically, Opta reported that Arsenal had the third most-favourable group stage draw of any team, though Kairat brought down the average level of their opponents.

"There’s plenty to be pleased about for the Premier League contingent, with Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea among the eight teams with the easiest sets of fixtures," Opta reported after the league phase draw.

"Mikel Arteta’s side have the easiest games of the English teams, and the third-easiest overall, with favourable matches against Olympiakos, Slavia Prague and Kairat, who are ranked 474th in the world in the Power Rankings. That lowly ranking has dragged Arsenal’s average down significantly, though.:

It is when we get into the knockout stage that draws start to fall in favour of Arsenal.

Let's look at how their knockout stage campaign has went thus far.

In the Round of 16 they took on a Leverkusen side that was a far cry from the Bundesliga-winning side of Xabi Alonso. Indeed, a summer of turmoil in which they lost a number of key players, including Florian Wirtz, saw them limp into the campaign and never fully recover.

Still, they held Arsenal to a 1-1 draw at home and the Gunners actually had to rely on an 88th minute penalty from Kai Havertz to ensure things remained all-square heading into the second leg.

A week later, they progressed with a 2-0 win at the Emirates with Eberechi Eze and Declan Rice scoring in each half. That would be the last time that they scored more than a single goal in one game in the knockout stage, while they weren't up against much as the German side only managed two shots on target.

In 180 minutes of action against Sporting CP in the quarter-final, they only scored once and, again, that came courtesy of a very late one from Kai Havertz, this time in Portugal instead of away in Germany. In those 180 minutes of action, they faced just four shots on target from Sporting.

A lot of this is down to Arsenal's quite outstanding defensive play, but they placed two sides in the last-16 and the quarters that were, quite simply, way beneath them in terms of quality.

Now we come to the semi-final stage and that was never going to be a feast of attacking football as they took on the aggressive Atletico Madrid. Both legs were tight affairs and the Gunners eventually progressed 2-1, though they benefited from having already played the Spanish capital club earlier in the league phase.

Furthermore, they were given a major helping hand by the referee in the second leg as Antoine Griezmann went down after a clear foul inside the box. VAR and the official determined that Gabriel had been fouled in the build-up and that was simply not the case.

However, a big reason Arsenal reached the final was their own level of performance. They were defensively consistent throughout the tournament, controlled games well, and took advantage of key moments when it mattered. So while their route may have looked more manageable on paper than some rivals’, they still had to beat strong European teams to get there, and most people would say they deserve their place in the final.

The easiest ever run to the final?

When it comes to the easiest runs to the final in the history of the Champions League, Arsenal's doesn't come close, really.

In 2009/10, Manchester United reached the final after playing Valencia, Rangers and Bursaspor in the group stage and then Marseille, Chelsea and Schalke in the knockout stage. In the final, they were dismanteld by an awesom Barcelona side.

Don't forget, Bayern Munich won the Champions League in 2020 after Covid forced a mini-tournament in which matches were only one decided by one leg from the quarter-final on. In the tournament in Lisbon, they beat Barca in the quarters, Lyon in the semis and then PSG in the final but did so via just one leg.

2004 was probably the last year a truly surprising team won the Champions League, as Jose Mourinho and Porto triumphed. However, after beating Manchester United at Old Trafford, they only had to overcome Lyon, Deportivo and then Monaco.

Certainly good teams but not European elite.

Written by

Martin Macdonald | Writer

Martin Macdonald. a Content Writer for FootballTransfers and FootballTransfers USA, as well as the Business Operations Manager for RealTimes Network, has worked in football reporting for over 15 years, starting at GOAL and Perform Media before moving to RealTimes. He was formerly the Chief Editor of MovieMeter.com and has also written for FightFans, GPFans and MSN.

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