The door to winning the Europa League is open for Man United.
At the Emirates home field, Arsenal is confident of a good result in the welcome of Sporting Lisbon in the second leg of the 1/8 round of the Europa League. The Gunners opened the scoring right in the 19th minute after Xhaka’s goal. However, coach Arteta still had to wince when two students Saliba and Tomiyasu had to leave the field respectively due to injury.
Things got worse for Arsenal when the away team leveled at the start of the second half. From near the middle of the field, Goncalves suddenly launched a kick straight into the goal. The Ramsdale goalkeeper was too caught off guard and let the ball go into the net.
Coach Arteta, even though he threw the best factors into the field, still could not finish the game in the two main periods. Entering extra time, the Gunners almost surrounded the opponent’s goal. A series of opportunities to eat appeared but unfortunately all Trossard, Holding and Gabriel could not do it.
Draw 1-1 after 120 minutes, the two teams entered the penalty shootout 11m. Here, Sporting is the better team when successfully executing all 5 kicks. On the Arsenal side, Martinelli became a criminal with a shot that was saved by goalkeeper Adan.
With this defeat, Arsenal officially stopped in the Europa League. For the rest of the season, Arteta’s teachers and students will focus on the Premier League arena.
While Arsenal were eliminated, Man United gently continued. The Red Devils won 1-0 at Real Betis to win tickets to the quarterfinals with a total score of 5-1.
In terms of force correlation, Man United is being evaluated as the number one candidate for the Europa League championship. Red Devils fans hope that coach Ten Hag can repeat the achievement that Mourinho achieved in 2017: winning the League Cup and Europa League double.