Even the man who Mikel Arteta has described as his chief “chaos creator” almost found things a bit too much. Riccardo Calafiori was in the thick of the celebrations after Max Dowman’s historic late goal to clinch victory over Everton on Saturday as Arsenal’s players mobbed him by the corner flag at the Emirates after the six touches that changed the 16-year-old’s life forever.
In all the excitement, Kai Havertz borrowed a pair of glasses from a more than willing supporter and waved them in the air before politely returning them in what Calafiori described as the best moment of Arsenal’s season so far. “We were all so happy. We ran towards him and the fans,” the Italy defender said. “It was almost a fight with the fans – in a nice way, obviously. It was amazing.”
Calafiori had already played his part in the victory that took Arsenal nine points clear of Manchester City by producing an unbelievable acrobatic block to keep out a shot from Dwight McNeil. It left David Moyes in awe afterwards and the 23-year-old is convinced Arsenal are on course to make this a season to remember for more reasons than one. “I believe that with these small things, big things normally happen, something big is going to happen,” Calafiori said before the second leg of Arsenal’s Champions League last-16 tie against Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday.
For Arteta, who could not hide his emotions after Dowman’s goal and was still beaming at his pre-match press conference on Monday, the challenge is to harness all the positivity from the win for their next match.
Leverkusen will be feeling quietly confident after drawing against the runaway Bundesliga leaders, Bayern Munich, at the weekend and beating Olympiakos away from home in the playoffs. Kasper Hjulmand’s side proved in the first leg last week that they are more than capable of causing Arsenal’s defence problems in open play and from set pieces. Yet with a formidable record of 13 wins from their 16 home games under Arteta in the Champions League and the Arsenal supporters still on a high from the weekend, they will back themselves to progress to a third successive quarter-final.
“That’s what we want. When you have that momentum, you need to maintain it and improve it and as you go from competition to competition, you have to use it to win,” Arteta said. “The atmosphere will still remain at the Emirates [Stadium]. The first thing that you do when you come in there, those moments are going to come, and we have to use it in a powerful way. All of us, our supporters, to start to generate that energy, that belief and do what we have to do to go through the quarter-final. We know what’s at stake, how much we want it and we’re going to show that.”
Arsenal have conceded only five goals in their nine Champions League games so far but looked far from comfortable at times against Leverkusen in the first leg. In particular, Gabriel Magalhães struggled to contain the 19-year-old Cameroon striker Christian Kofane before they went behind from a corner at the start of the second half. Calafiori, who may have to make do with a place on the bench with Piero Hincapié likely to start at left-back, expects whoever plays to follow his example against Everton as Arsenal bid to reach the last eight for the third year in succession.
“Like I proved on Saturday, we want to defend our goal and we keep fighting with all our bodies to save the team and to save the result,” he said. “So I think this mentality is much more important. At this level we’re talking about details, so this can change the game all the time.”
Arsenal won all eight of their matches in the league phase and, along with Bayern – who they beat 3-1 in November at the Emirates – are one of the top two seeds in the knockout phase. They could be on course for a trip to the Arctic Circle to face Bodø/Glimt with the Norwegian side 3-0 up against Sporting after the first leg in Norway. But Arteta is wary of Leverkusen after admitting that his team were not at their best in Germany.
“They have a lot of quality individually in a lot of areas of the pitch. As every team, they have their strengths, their weaknesses, and we’ll try to target them,” he said. “When you come to this stage in the competition, you really have to elevate your game to a different level, collectively and individually. For sure, this will be one of those nights where we need the best from all of us in a really consistent way to go through.”
