Tonight (2:00 a.m. on 10.4/), Arsenal hosted Bayern Munich in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League 2023-2024 quarter-finals. Just the name of the German representative could cause concern somewhere in London.
At this point, most are easily seeing the contrasting state between Arsenal and Bayern in the Premier League and Bundesliga. While the "Gunners" are one of three candidates for the English championship, the "Gray Tigers" are considered to have given the silver plate to Bayer Leverkusen.
Not only a chance to compete in the top two national tournaments, the performance of the two teams is also at two extremes, with Arsenal being very stable, while Bayern showing instability.
Therefore, many opinions suggest that this is the best opportunity for Arsenal to erase their haunt on Bayern in the Champions League arena.
Those hauntings come from Arsenal's loss of seven of their 12 Champions League meetings with Bayern since 2000. Notably, the two teams have only met once in the group stage (2 times) - the 2015-16 season, the rest were in the knockout rounds and the loss was for Arsenal.
Another statistic to deeply focus on the mental wound inside The Gunners is that in the last 3 meetings, they lost to Bayern with a score of 1-5.
To find reasons for Arsenal to be optimistic, first of all, the last time the two teams met was 7 years ago. That is, when Arsene Wenger was still in the coaching chair, while Mikel Arteta only arrived 2 years later.
Over the past five years, the Spaniard has changed Arsenal. No longer the "young soldiers of Wenger" but have become " Arteta's men". Their resilience is being demonstrated in the Premier League race.
Following the habit that people still see in them in previous years, this was the "letdown" period for Arsenal because they were tired and lacked courage. But this year, they are still showing a state of high concentration.
This means having the chance to win the Premier League after 20 years and officially getting rid of the "Bavarian obsession".
The problem is that although Arsenal passed the brain test against Porto in the 1/8 round of the Champions League, even if Bayern disappointed in the Bundesliga, they were still in a different position in the European arena.
At this time, the Champions League is also the only arena where the "Gray Tigers" can hope to avoid a season without a trophy (exposed in the German Cup). They of course have to focus on this arena, with the latest evidence being the comeback against Lazio in the round of 16.
On the Bayern coaching chair is Thomas Tuchel, who was crowned with Chelsea in 2022. If there was any story in the relationship between Tuchel and the players, they would only show it in the Bundesliga. In the Champions League, as I said, they need to do everything to win the title.
So, when Martin Odegaard and his teammates encouraged themselves with the message "nothing to fear Harry Kane" - who scored 14 goals in 19 meetings with Arsenal when playing for Tottenham, somewhere in the London team's mentality there was still a bit of a problem.
Arsenal will need to create a very safe result at the Emirates if they do not want to fall into danger when they visit the Allianz-Arena in Munich next week.
