Arsenal reach 2025/26 Champions League final | News
We have reached the UEFA Champions League for just the second time in our history after beating Atletico Madrid 2-1 on aggregate in the semi-final.
Bukayo Saka’s 44th-minute strike was enough to edge us past the La Liga side in the second leg, and means we will now face either Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain in the final, which will be held at Budapest’s Puskas Stadium on Saturday, May 30 (5pm UK time).
After a six-season absence from Europe’s premier competition, under Mikel Arteta we have improved every season since to make it to the showpiece this time around. In 2023/24 we reached the quarter-finals, while last term, eventual winners PSG ended our hopes at the semi-final stage.
But this time around, we have gone an extra step to make it the final for the first time in 20 years, and the second time in our history after our 2006 defeat against Barcelona in Paris.
When we take to the field at the Puskas Arena, Mikel will be the second-youngest manager to lead us into a major European final (44y 65d on May 30), after Terry Neill in the 1980 Cup Winners’ Cup (38y 6d v Valencia).
Read more
Report: Arsenal 1-0 Atletico Madrid (2-1 agg)
Our supporters have had to be patient to return to the biggest game in European club football – our two-decade-long wait is the longest period between European Cup/Champions League finals by a team since Atletico Madrid themselves in 2014 (40 years), and longest by an English side since Liverpool in 2005 (also 20 years).
But there has been no stopping us in this season’s competition. We became the first time in the competition’s history to win all eight matches in the league phase, and then overcame Bayer Leverkusen and Sporting Lisbon 3-1 and 1-0 on aggregate respectively to make it to the final four, where we beat Atleti.
The 1-1 draw in Madrid followed by the 1-0 success in the second leg at Emirates Stadium has seen us go 14 consecutive matches without defeat for the first time in our European Cup/Champions League history. Of the 44 instances of a team playing 14 or more times in a campaign, we are now the only one to remain unbeaten.
One more victory at the end of the month will see us get our hands on the famous piece of silverware for the first time in our 139-year history.
Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
