Arsenal leave Madrid with destiny in their hands: Gunners' path to UCL final clear after gritty draw at Atleti

The Gunners head back to the Emirates knowing that just the narrowest of wins will see them advance to the Champions League final

MADRID -- Shall we get the obvious out of the way first? Of course, this was nothing like a game on the level of Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, a clash that will go down in Champions League history. Forty years from now, this might be the Sex Pistols at Manchester's Free Trade Hall, a volume of people who've convinced themselves they were there for a moment that felt so tactile it was as if you were drawn through your screen and into the Parc des Princes.

The Metropolitano, the next day? You weren't there, man. You don't know what that was like. The stress, emotions rising and falling vertiginously. An officiating process toying with the emotions of 60,000, This was a semifinal of struggle, a battle for both teams against themselves as much as their opponents.

Could Arsenal shade the absence of their best players? Could Atletico Madrid get the ball up to their match-winning forwards? The answer for both teams was they could do so somewhat better than you might have expected but not quite as well as was required to break this tie open. Neither of these semifinalists can trade in the sort of haymakers that were being thrown on the other side of the bracket. This will need to be a slow grind.

That looks like it will favor Arsenal. They get home advantage after this 1-1 draw and this is a team whose only home concessions in this competition came in a dead rubber against Kairat. Their best players should be able to give them more minutes in six days' time. As Julian Alvarez limped off early in a game he had brought to parity, you wondered if Atleti's star would see the field at the Emirates.

It might seem like a lifetime ago but this Arsenal have proven that they can do the business against the best this competition has to offer. All three semifinalists have lost at the Emirates since the start of last season. Both Bayern Munich and Atletico were comprehensively blitzed a few months back. Of course, that was not going to happen on Wednesday. Mikel Arteta did not have the facilities to roll out that team today. Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze on the bench, Kai Havertz unavailable, the dread front three of Noni Madueke, Gabriel Martinelli and Viktor Gyokeres returning amid a minutes restriction on the stars.

As such, Arsenal's task from the outset here was not that dissimilar to an NBA side trying to navigate some tricky second-quarter minutes of a playoff game without their superstar. These aren't the moments you need to win. They're the ones you need to find a way not to lose.

Mikel Arteta's side did plenty more than that. Early on, however, they wobbled as Atletico Madrid burst out of the traps, passes flying across the pitch from every angle like the bog roll that the Metropolitano had unleashed before kick off. Piero Hincapie's slip unleashed Antoine Griezmann, who found Alvarez. Declan Rice scrambled back excellently to block the shot.

It wouldn't be the last. Deployed as more of a pure holding midfielder than he has been on many occasions since his move from east London to north, Rice excelled. In possession, he was the archetypal deep-lying playmaker who would take the ball, let the center backs split and theoretically empower the full backs to push on. This is Arsenal, though. Piero Hincapie was hardly going to be bombing down the wing.

Arsenal were always going to keep it tight. That is their superpower as much as PSG and Bayern's are the synchronicity of the front three, the press, the superstars: whatever you want to call it. Arsenal's is that you will find it a nightmare to get into their penalty area. When you do your shot is probably going to hit one of their bodies. It would prove to be a bitter irony that that very quality would rob them of their lead.

Before then, there was a great deal to admire about Arsenal in their own box and beyond. Gyokeres has hardly pulled up trees since his move from Sporting but this was a vastly improved performance off limited service. He ran hard down the channels and was unlucky that Martin Odegaard did not do more when he had carried the ball halfway up the pitch and picked him out in the box. Defending and attacking set pieces, he threw his head at every ball with a force often lacking from a player who wins less than 30% of his aerial duels in the Premier League.

Did he sell David Hancko's clattering for the back row of the Metropolitano? He surely did, but with the aid of Odegaard and Martin Zubimendi, he had manufactured a position where he could either pull the trigger immediately or take the 0.79 xG shot from a penalty. Who among us would not follow his example?

At halftime, Arsenal really had this game under their control. Diego Simeone understood that as well as anyone, switching to a back three that allowed him to push Ademola Lookman and Antoine Griezmann into the half spaces. Their runs from out to in finally turned those edge-of-the-box swings and misses into real pressure, the sort that required magnificence from first David Raya and then Gabriel.

If there is a defense that might not have buckled under the pressure of a booming Metropolitano it is Arsenal. Who will know if they would have held out? Ben White's handball off Marcos Llorente's shot was a textbook UEFA penalty. That's not necessarily many neutral's idea of what should constitute a goal eight times out of 10 but we are where we are. At least we have consistency. I guess.

The xG will tell you this is as hard as Arsenal's defense has been pushed this year. The lived experience of that was a few half chances, the brilliant denial of Ademola Lookman and Antoine Griezmann in a flash and that penalty. The Gunners will go home believing they can do even better than that. Given the circumstances, it wasn't bad anyway.

It might have been better if referee Danny Makkelie had stuck with his initial instinct to give a penalty when Hancko collided with Eberechi Eze. The introduction of the No.10 and Bukayo Saka ensured that Arsenal were applying the pressure late on and offers further reason to believe that this tie is in their hands at the Emirates Stadium.

It might not have been thrill-a-minute, it might not have the world delirious at the beauty of this sport, but there is more than one way to make a Champions League final. Right now, Arsenal should feel that they are on the right path.