Arsenal Handed Dream Route To Champions League Final

Lady Luck has a funny way of choosing its favourites in the unpredictable game of European football. The North London draw of the Champions League has not only been generous to Mikel Arteta and his team but it has been almost divine.

While the old heavy weights of the continent gird to slice each other to shreds like a butcher does to meat, Arsenal are glancing at a road to the final that looks more like a scenic bypass than a gauntlet.

Even the purist will say Arsenal indeed have the best route to the final. And when their forms are considered, it’s presents a dreadful situation to even the heavyweights left in the competition.

Yet Arsenal fans will warn against premature celebration pointing to histories which have made the North London team to be mocked as the bottlers – capitulation even against minnows in the game.

The biggest victory for the Gunners though didn’t even happen on the pitch. By landing in the opposite side of the bracket, Arsenal have successfully avoided the ‘Who is Who’ of European royalty. PSG, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Manchester City and Bayern Munich, the teams that usually represent the glass ceiling for English ambitions are now strictly ‘final only’ problems.

For a club seeking its first-ever European Cup, keeping the 15-time winners and the perennial Bundesliga champions at arm’s length until May is a stroke of luck that cannot be overstated.

The journey begins in Germany, but not against the Bavarian giants. Arsenal will face Bayer Leverkusen in the Round of 16. While Kasper Hjulmand’s side is never an easy out, it is a far more digestible prospect than a trip to the Bernabéu or the Etihad.

In case they hurdle over the Leverkusen roadblock, the quarter-finals are the next encounter that will give the Emirates faithful a dream of the semi-finals. One of the dates is with either Sporting CP or Bodo/Glimt. With all due respect to the Portuguese lions and the Norwegian underdogs, this is the exact ‘favorable draw’ Arsenal fans have prayed for over the last two decades.

The intrigue only deepens in the semi-finals. If Arteta’s men progress, the stakes reach a fever pitch. Their opponent will emerge from a quartet of Tottenham, Atletico Madrid, Newcastle, or Barcelona.

The very thought that it may be a North London Derby on the European stage is enough to put the heartbeat up, but even the threat of a match against a rebuilding Barcelona or an ugly Atletico is a stroll in comparison with the monsters on the other side of the fence.

No easy games are played at this level but there definitely are ‘easier’ pathways. Arsenal have been given the keys to the city. Should they fail to get to the final here, they will have no one to blame but themselves.