Mikel Arteta was delighted with his players after Arsenal’s 3-0 victory over Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie on Tuesday.
Declan Rice scored two brilliant free kicks before a tidy finish from Mikel Merino added gloss to the scoreline to seal a famous victory for the Gunners, who take a hefty lead to Madrid for the second leg next week.
“Beautiful. So happy, so proud of the team. We have the opportunity to make a lot of people proud and we certainly have done that,” Arteta told Amazon Prime after the match.
“I’ve never seen the stadium like this. Before the game they were already singing and already playing the game. For big European nights you need the big stadiums that create atmosphere and you need individual magic moments and there you go.
“That’s the beauty of whoever invented this sport. We hadn’t scored a free-kick since September 2021, and tonight, against Real Madrid at home in the Champions League, we scored two in 13 minutes.”
Arsenal thoroughly deserved their victory over 15-time European champions Real Madrid, restricting them to just three shots on target while the home side had 11.
Arteta could not hide his delight at the performance.
Arsenal registered 11 shots on target against Madrid.
That’s the joint-most on record (since 2003-04) by a team in a UCL knockout stage game against Real Madrid (11 by Liverpool in March 2009) #ARSRMA pic.twitter.com/09iygoOVeO
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) April 8, 2025
“I mean, collectively, when we played the way we played and have the performance that we had you need individuals at the highest level.” Arteta said, reported by BBC Sport.
“I think they all took their performance to another level, their individual performance to the standards that are required to beat this incredible team.
“[I am] very happy and now it is about consistency.”
Real Madrid have only ever once overturned a three-goal first-leg deficit, doing so after a 4-1 defeat away to Derby County in the 1975-76 season.
Despite history being on their side, Arteta knows that they will need to put in another good performance at the Bernabeu to have any chance of progressing further.
“OK, we need to go there. We know we will have to step up again and we will try to win it,” he said.
“It’s another step in the right direction as a team. We have to make another one and replicate what we’ve done tonight.”
