Arsenal see off Atlético Madrid and feel gnawing fear of failure start to fall away

There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Arsenal, having failed to capitalise on so many opportunities over the past few years, have suddenly and not entirely expectedly seized their chance. A week ago, their course seemed uncertain, the waters choppy; quite abruptly, the skies have cleared and, the wind in their sails, Arsenal are sailing on towards potential glory.

Atlético tested them and they came through it to reach their first Champions League final in 20 years. Whether it’s Paris Saint-Germain or Bayern they will meet in Budapest, that challenge will be very different to this one but the important thing is they are there. It was perhaps inevitable that if they were going to go through it would be 1-0, not just for old times’ sake but because this was an old-fashioned kind of semi‑final, won not through the sort of attacking pyrotechnics of the first leg of PSG v Bayern, but through discipline and resolve.

Arsenal shut down Atlético comprehensively; beyond a couple of penalty appeals in quick succession early in the second half, there were very few moments of peril. Given Mikel Arteta’s obsession with minimising risk, this was a win born of his conception of the game. The celebrations at the end, as the rain swept through the fireworks, felt like an outpouring of relief, but perhaps less for the 90 minutes that had immediately preceded it than the years before, all those exits, all those near-misses, all those crushing eliminations by Bayern. Arsenal are probably the biggest club in Europe never to have won the Champions League; they will be second favourites for the final whomever they face, but they at least have a chance.

For Atleti, who themselves are without a Champions League success despite playing in three finals, there was more frustration. Diego Simeone’s late yellow card was predictable but his resigned expression at half-time perhaps more apt. This was a game in which his side barely threatened.

The specifics have changed over the 15-year course of Simeone’s reign as he has developed and Atlético have developed with him, but the pattern of these nights remains the same. Atlético absorb. They fight. They have an intensity and a ferocity that unsettles even the most gifted opponents. They make occasionally surprising inroads. And slowly their opponents’ sense of fear mounts. The challenge often seems as much psychological as technical: a relentless assault of extreme motivation.