Arsenal Football Club’s manager, Mikel Arteta, took a moment to reflect on his UEFA Champions League debut against PSV. Following his team’s commanding 4-0 victory over the Dutch side at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday, September 20, 2023, Arteta shared his emotional experience upon hearing the competition’s theme song played before the match.
The goals were scored by Bukayo Saka, Leandro Trossard, and Gabriel Jesus in the first half and the scoring was completed by club captain, Odegaard in the 70th minute. This game marked the inaugural Champions League appearance for most of the players and marked Arsenal’s return to the competition after a six-year absence following Arsene Wenger’s departure from the club.
I am really happy. It was really emotional just listening to the music and the atmosphere that we had in the stadium, it was great. It is a good memory for the first game to win 4-0, and the way we played, I’m really happy. I could sense over the past 48 hours and the way [the players] were, the level of attention that they wanted, how they were competing like they were up for the fight. But then you have to do it against a really good side that hasn’t lost a single game, and today we won because we were really efficient in both boxes. We had some transition moments to defend after their reply, and we did that really, really well and we were really clinical. We were really composed on the ball to pick the right player, the right pass, the right space and that was the difference in the game
