Mikel Arteta Explains How Arsenal ‘Plan’ to Get Past Real Madrid in UCL QF

• Arsenal progressed to the UEFA Champions League quarter-final after a 9-3 aggregate win over PSV
• They will face Real Madrid, who beat city rivals Atletico Madrid 4-2 in a controversial penalty shootout
• Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has laid out plans for how his team will progress to the semifinal over Madrid

Mikel Arteta has opened up on his plans to have Arsenal progress to the semi-final of the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League at the expense of Real Madrid.

Arsenal reached the quarterfinal for the third consecutive season under Mikel Arteta after beating Dutch giants PSV Eindhoven with an aggregate scoreline of 9-3.

They will face Real Madrid in the quarterfinal after the perennial winners beat their city rivals Atletico Madrid, 4-2 on penalties under controversial circumstances.

The two sides will clash in the last eight with the first leg taking place at the Emirates Stadium in London, while the second leg will take place at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid.

Arteta shares Arsenal’s plan

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has opened up on how he plans to get his team to qualify for the next round at the expense of their opponent, which at the time of his post-match conference, was undecided.

He claimed not to have a preference between both teams as they are both different and difficult opponents.

“No, because they are so different, both of them, the styles, the managers, the history of them. We know about the difficulty for sure, but I cannot tell you one of them,” he said, as quoted by Arsenal.com.

The Gunners are in their third quarter-final under Arteta after not being in the competition for seven years, and he wants all those associated with the club to value it because it was difficult.

“We have to value that and recognise that it is very difficult to do it. We've done it consistently, and now we want to make the next step, which is going to be really difficult, but we are very capable of playing,” he said.

He didn't have an opponent in mind when he described how Arsenal should prepare so they would progress to the semi-final, but he claims they have to learn from their previous experiences.

Last season, Thomas Tuchel’s Bayern Munich eliminated the Gunners, and he admitted that the Bavarian's experience played a part in dumping them and that his club has to consistently be there to muster the experience to progress.

“We were riding there in the home game, we had them on the ropes. They escaped, and when we were there we were a bit short to get to that final stage. So hopefully we will learn we are better than then and we can make it happen,” he said.

As noted by UEFA.com, the two sides have only met twice in their history, in the semi-final of the 2005/06 UCL. Arsenal won 1-0 on aggregate, scoring the only goal at the Bernabeu to face Barcelona in the final, which they lost.

Why Alvarez's penalty was cancelled

Legit.ng explained why Julian Alvarez's penalty was disallowed during the shootout after a video assistant referee review, allowing Real Madrid to gain the advantage.

The 2022 World Cup winner was adjudged to have double kicked the ball, which led to the annulment because of a little-known rule fans have been kicking against.