Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is urging his players to believe they can win the Champions League for the first time because they have already beaten \u201cthe best opposition you can face in the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defeating defending champion Real Madrid 5-1 on aggregate in the quarterfinals \u2014 after victories home and away \u2014 has raised expectations that Arsenal can go all the way.<\/p>\n
Arteta acknowledged everyone associated with Arsenal is feeling the weight of history heading into the semifinals against Paris Saint-Germain, starting with the first leg at Emirates Stadium on Tuesday, and he wants his team to embrace that.<\/p>\n
Asked whether Arsenal should be classed as the tournament favorite after its displays against Madrid, Arteta said they have \u201cgenerated enthusiasm and possibilities no one probably expected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when you look at our history \u2014 and you go back to our history \u2014 we have never done it,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there is so much to do. Hopefully if someone believes we can do it, it\u2019s because of the performances and what the team is transmitting against big opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arsenal lost the Champions League final to Barcelona in 2006 and in the semifinals to Manchester United in 2009 and hasn\u2019t been back to the last four since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is urging his players to believe they can win the Champions League for the first time because they have already beaten \u201cthe best opposition you can face in the competition.\u201d Defeating defending champion Real Madrid 5-1 on aggregate in the quarterfinals \u2014 after victories home and away \u2014 has raised expectations …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47491,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47490\/revisions\/47491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}