Arsenal and Atletico Madrid Prepare for Tense Champions League Semifinal

The 2025-26 UEFA Champions League is drawing toward its fascinating conclusion.

Just four teams—England’s Arsenal, Spain’s Atletico Madrid, Germany’s Bayern Munich, and France’s Paris Saint-Germain—remain in contention for the tournament trophy.

The semifinal round kicked off on Tuesday, Apr. 28, with PSG beating Bayern 5-4 in Paris and Atleti and Arsenal drawing 1-1 in Madrid. Both ties remain balanced on a knife’s edge as the teams regroup for the second leg.

Bayern will host PSG in Munich on Tuesday, while Arsenal will host Atleti in London on Wednesday. Here’s where both semifinals are likely to be won or lost:

Arsenal vs. Atletico Madrid (1-1 on aggregate)

The first leg between Atleti and Arsenal was a tale of two penalties, and indeed the game’s best players wound up being the men who converted them: Atleti’s Julian Alvarez and Arsenal’s Viktor Gyokeres. Both wound up being personally responsible for a huge percentage of their teams’ expected goals tally—Alvarez carried 67% of Atleti’s while Gyokeres carried 36% of Arsenal’s.

Those numbers highlight just how poor Atleti’s expected goal distribution was (and just how healthy Arsenal’s wound up being.) Alvarez wasn’t the only attacker Atleti played, but the stats sure make it look like he was. If Atleti wants to truly challenge Arsenal and win the second leg in London, it will have to source moments of brilliance from its other creative players.

One of those creative players is French playmaker Antoine Griezmann, and it’s reasonable to assume that Arsenal will mark him out of the match entirely and make it hard for him to contribute. With that in mind, it’s Atleti’s other creative player—Nigerian attacker Ademola Lookman—who will shoulder most of this responsibility.

Lookman was good against Arsenal, but he wasn’t spectacular. He mistimed a few runs, wasted a few chances, and wasn’t able to make the most of the scoring opportunities he received. He’s plenty capable of delivering on the European stage—he scored a hat trick in the Europa League final in 2024—and he’s going to have to do it again if Atleti is to compete with Arsenal’s well-balanced roster.