{"id":375176,"date":"2024-03-12T02:33:12","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T03:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=375176"},"modified":"2024-03-12T06:06:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T06:06:15","slug":"arsenals-overdue-shot-to-rejoin-european-elite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=375176","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal's overdue shot to rejoin European elite"},"content":{"rendered":"

The big guns are lining up in the quarter-finals of the Champions League<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Defending champion Manchester City<\/a>, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich<\/a> and Paris Saint-Germain have already booked their places in the last eight of European football's top club competition and the full lineup will be completed this week.<\/p>\n

All four remaining round of 16 matches are finely balanced, with no more than one goal separating any of the teams after the first legs.<\/p>\n

Watch football's biggest clubs and best players in the 2023-24 UEFA Champions League,<\/strong><\/em> streaming ad free, live and exclusive on Stan Sport<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Osimhen<\/p>\n

Barcelona hosts Napoli on Wednesday (7am kickoff AEDT) in a clash between the reigning champions of Spain and Italy respectively. They drew 1-1 in the first leg in Italy.<\/p>\n

In the day's other game, Arsenal are 1-0 down against Porto ahead of their match at Emirates Stadium.<\/p>\n

On Thursday (7am kickoff AEDT), Atletico Madrid must overturn a 1-0 deficit at home against Inter Milan, and host Borussia Dortmund and PSV Eindhoven are locked at 1-1 ahead of their game.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportFC\/status\/1767052136041590789?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

UNCONVINCING TITLE DEFENCES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Neither Barcelona nor Napoli have made convincing defences of their domestic league titles.<\/p>\n

Napoli faces a fight to even qualify for last season's Champions League as it sits seven points off fourth placed Bologna in Serie A and are on their third coach this term after appointing Francesco Calzona last month.<\/p>\n

Barcelona are third in La Liga and coach Xavi Hernandez has announced his intention to leave at the end of the season after an underwhelming campaign.<\/p>\n

He would love to go out on a high by guiding the club to a sixth Champions League trophy.<\/p>\n

First things first, he needs to navigate a way past Napoli to lead Barcelona to the quarter-finals for the first time since the 2019-20 season.<\/p>\n

\"Arsenal<\/p>\n

ARSENAL'S AIM<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mikel Arteta's priority is likely to be the Premier League, with Arsenal locked in a three way battle with Liverpool and Manchester City for the title.<\/p>\n

But the Champions League quarter-finals are in sight \u2014 even if his team is a goal behind to Porto.<\/p>\n

Arsenal returned to the Champions League for the first time in seven years this season and have impressed in advancing to the round of 16.<\/p>\n

The Londoners looked to have secured a goalless first leg draw at Porto until Galeno's 90th minute goal.<\/p>\n

That was the only defeat in a stunning run of form that has seen Arsenal win eight of their last nine games and score four or more goals in five of those matches.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportFC\/status\/1767354884804800667?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

INTER IMPRESSING<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last year's beaten finalist Inter Milan is powering on again this season.<\/p>\n

Simone Inzaghi's team is cruising toward the Italian title with only one league loss this season.<\/p>\n

Marko Arnautovic's goal at Atletico in the first leg secured a 1-0 victory and was part of a 13 game winning run in all competitions.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Atletico's form has been far from convincing with five defeats in their last eight games.<\/p>\n

\"De<\/p>\n

PSV HOPE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luuk de Jong's penalty means there is nothing separating Dortmund and PSV ahead of the second leg.<\/p>\n

The PSV forward scored from the spot to cancel out Donyell Malen's earlier strike for Dortmund to leave the tie in the balance going back to Germany.<\/p>\n

If the Dutch team can secure a win, it would advance to the quarter-finals for the first time since the 2006-07 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big guns are lining up in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Defending champion Manchester City, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain have […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":369698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375181,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375176\/revisions\/375181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/369698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=375176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=375176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}