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Atl\u00e9tico Madrid and Arsenal will meet for just the fourth time in European competition, with half of those coming in this season\u2019s UEFA Champions League (2\/4). The Gunners won 4-0 in a league phase meeting last October, which remains Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s joint-heaviest defeat in the competition (lost by four on five occasions).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Arsenal and Atl\u00e9tico Madrid are the two teams that have played the most matches in the history of the European Cup\/Champions League without ever winning the trophy: 223 and 190 respectively.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
When playing at either the Vicente Calder\u00f3n or the Riyadh Air Metropolitano, Atl\u00e9tico Madrid have never lost at home to an English side in a UEFA Champions League knockout stage match (P6 W3 D3). All six of those were against different teams (Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City & Tottenham).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
This will be the 16th European Cup\/UEFA Champions League semi-final tie between Spanish and English teams \u2013 the sides from England have progressed in nine of the previous 15 (60%), as well as in four of the last five (the exception being Manchester City v Real Madrid in 2021-22).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Unbeaten in their last 12 (W10 D2), Arsenal are one game away from equalling their longest ever run without a defeat in the European Cup\/UEFA Champions League: 13 games between March 2005 and April 2006. That previous run took them into the 2006 final (v Barcelona), which remains the only time they have reached the European Cup showpiece.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Atl\u00e9tico Madrid produced just 0.32 xG from open play in their defeat at the Emirates earlier this season, and hit the target only once \u2013 both their lowest totals in a UEFA Champions League match this season. Across their other 13 games in this edition, Atl\u00e9tico averaged 1.34 xG from open play and six shots on target per match.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Arsenal\u2019s four games in the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League this season have produced just five goals (4 for, 1 against), an average of 1.25 per game. Meanwhile, Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u2019s six knockout stage matches in this edition have had an average of 4.7 goals per game (28 \u2013 17 for, 11 against).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
When facing opposition build-up, Atl\u00e9tico Madrid have the ninth-highest percentage of time spent in a defensive low block (20.4%) in this season\u2019s UEFA Champions League (out of 36 teams). Indeed, Diego Simeone\u2019s side also rank among the bottom 10 sides for percentage of time in a high defensive block (26.4% – 27th).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Atl\u00e9tico Madrid have averaged 374 high-intensity pressures per game in the UEFA Champions League this season, the fifth-most by any team in 2025-26. Indeed, Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s average is almost 100 more than any of this year\u2019s semi-finalists, with Arsenal the closest side to them (281 per game).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Coming into the semi-final round, only Paris SG (7.8) have averaged more defensive line-breaking passes per game than Atl\u00e9tico Madrid (7.1) in this season\u2019s UEFA Champions League. 21 of their defensive line-breaking passes have been received by Giuliano Simeone, which is more than twice as many as any other Atl\u00e9tico player (10, Alexander S\u00f8rloth).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Half of Viktor Gy\u00f6keres\u2019 goals for Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League (2\/4) came in the second half of their 4-0 win against Atl\u00e9tico Madrid in October. However, Gy\u00f6keres hasn\u2019t scored in any of his four knockout stage games in this edition and has had just six shots across those games \u2013 28 players have had more shot attempts since the start of the round of 16.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Arsenal have averaged 2.6 goals and 2.3 xG per game when Bukayo Saka has played for them in the UEFA Champions League this season (8 matches), compared to just 1.5 goals and 1.8 xG per game when he has been absent (4 matches). Saka has produced more successful pull backs (3) in the competition this season than Gabriel Martinelli, Noni Madueke and Leandro Trossard combined (2).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez\u2019s nine goals this season are already the most by an Atl\u00e9tico Madrid player in a single European Cup\/UEFA Champions League campaign. The Argentinean also leads all players in the 2025-26 edition for total high-intensity pressures (853), as well as the most per 90 (70 \u2013 min. 500 minutes played).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Antoine Griezmann has been directly involved in 24.2% of Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u2019s goals in the UEFA Champions League (56\/231 \u2013 40 goals, 16 assists); the highest percentage by any player for a team who have scored 100+ goals in the competition\u2019s history, just ahead of Lionel Messi for Barcelona (24.1%).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
In the 22 UEFA Champions League games that David Raya, William Saliba and Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es have started together, Arsenal have only conceded 11 goals (0.5 per game) and kept a clean sheet on 13 occasions (59%).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Atl\u00e9tico Madrid and Arsenal will meet for just the fourth time in European competition, with half of those coming in this season\u2019s UEFA Champions League (2\/4). The Gunners won 4-0 in a league phase meeting last October, which remains Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s joint-heaviest defeat in the competition (lost by four on five occasions). Arsenal and Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}