On This Day – 28th March
On this day back in 2006, Arsenal beat Juventus in the Quarter Finals of the Champions League.
Patrick Vieira was making an emotional return to North London in his first season after leaving Arsenal to join Juventus. He would go head-to-head with his replacement, a young Spaniard called Cesc Fabregas.
Highbury’s days were numbered and Arsenal weren’t anywhere near getting their hands on the league title. They had also been knocked out of the FA Cup by Bolton in the Fourth Round.
Wigan Athletic had beaten the Gunners in the League Cup Semi Final, leaving only the Champions League as their only chance for any silverware.
Cesc Fabregas scored the first goal of the game, firing a low shot past Gigi Buffon in the Juventus goal.
The move started when Robert Pires dispossessed his former captain Vieira just inside the Arsenal half.
Pires took the ball forward before laying it off to his fellow Frenchman Thierry Henry.
Henry held the ball up before playing it forward, into the path of Cesc Fabregas who had overlapped him. The young Spaniard took a couple of touches, steadied himself and placed a shot into the bottom right hand corner. Gigi Buffon was left rooted to the spot and Highbury erupted.
Former Juventus man Thierry Henry grabbed Arsenal’s second of the game with a little over 20 minutes of the game to go.
Robert Pires took a quick free-kick in the centre circle, playing the ball forward to Cesc Fabregas.
The goalscorer laid the ball off to Henry who had dropped deep to receive the ball. He in turn passed to Alex Hleb and both Fabregas and Henry made runs towards the Juve goal.
Hleb hit a slide-rule ball through to Fabregas and Buffon rushed out to close down the angle. Fabregas slid the ball square to Henry but it was just behind the French forward.
Henry stretched backwards and had to take a touch before hooking the ball into the unguarded net.
The match finished 2-0 to Arsenal and a 0-0 draw in the second leg in Turin meant that Arsenal progressed to the Champions League Semi Final for the first time in their history.
They beat Spanish Villarreal 1-0 on aggregate in the semi’s before losing to another Spanish team in the Final.
Despite losing goalkeeper Jens Lehmann to an early sending off, Arsenal took the lead through Sol Campbell. They weren’t able to hold on to the lead and lost to two second half goals.
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