LONDON: Mikel Arteta has urged Arsenal to use the “energy and belief” generated by reaching the Champions League final for the first time in 20 years as fuel to complete an historic double.

Even by his frenetic standards, Arteta was a blur of energy as the Gunners boss embarked on a jubilant lap of honour with his players after Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid in a cagey semi-final second leg at the Emirates Stadium.

Bukayo Saka’s close-range finish in the first half sealed a 2-1 aggregate victory that sent Arsenal back into the Champions League final for the first time since their only previous appearance ended in defeat against Barcelona in 2006.

Saka’s return from injury could not have come at a better time for Arsenal. He scored in the 3-0 win over Fulham at the weekend and was alert to poke home a rebound in the 44th minute after Jan Oblak parried Leandro Trossard’s shot at his feet.

“It was a high-pressure game. It meant a lot to both sides. We managed it well,” Saka said. “Sometimes it bounces for you and sometimes it doesn’t but it fell for me and we’re in the final now.”

The north London club are now four games from immortality, with three wins from their remaining Premier League matches against West Ham United, Burnley and Crystal Palace guaranteeing a first English title since 2004.

After the title fight with Manchester City is decided, Arteta’s side will travel to Budapest on May 30 as they chase a maiden Champions League crown.

Arsenal are riding a tidal wave of emotion after the outpouring of joy from Arteta, his players and 60,000 fans on Tuesday.

From the moment, thousands of Arsenal fans massed outside the stadium to greet the team bus with red flares, flags and defiant roars of encouragement, it was clear this was a day unlike any other for the Gunners.

Arteta was ecstatic during the wild post-match celebrations and, on the cusp of history, he challenged his players to use the feeling to carry them to the finish line in both competitions.

“It’s great. Everybody can feel a shift in energy, in belief, in everything,” he said.

“Let’s use it in the right way and understand that the margins and the difficulty of what we are trying to achieve are huge, but that we have the ability and the conviction to do it.

“I’m really going to enjoy it tonight, everybody is enjoying this moment now. But the high is not too high and the low is not too low. My job is to be quite stable.

“We have an incredible game against West Ham, a really tough one, and we’re going to have four days to do that.”

‘An incredible night’

Over two decades have passed since Arsene Wenger’s ‘Invincibles’ reigned supreme with their unbeaten title-winning campaign in 2004.

Wenger gradually lost his way after losing to Barca in the Champions League final, but Arteta finally appears to have recaptured the spirit of that iconic team.

The Spaniard has laboured for over six years to create the perfect alchemy between players and fans, a bond that has come dangerously close to breaking during a trophy drought dating back to the 2020 FA Cup victory.

Arteta has hit on the perfect ingredients this season, leaving Arsenal on the brink of erasing the pain of three successive runners-up finishes in the Premier League.

“It was an incredible night. We made history again together and I cannot be happier and prouder for everybody that’s involved in this football club,” Arteta said.

“The supporters were with us for every ball. They made it special and unique, and I have never felt it like that in this stadium. We knew how much it meant to everybody, we put everything on the line, the boys did an incredible job.”

Winning the Champions League and Premier League in a single season would be greatest campaign in the club’s 140-year history.

Arteta is happy to give the credit to his players, admitting he could never have imagined being so close to such glory when he arrived to start his first managerial job in 2019.

“They are the ones that have to make these kind of performances. I didn’t really imagine it because we weren’t in Europe at the beginning. This is a big achievement,” he said. “We have been building little by little. We believed in what we wanted to do. Now we have to maintain it.”

Simeone, Atletico at crossroads

Meanwhile, it will be a fifth straight year without silverware for Diego Simeone’s side, inevitably raising questions over the Argentine coach’s future.

Asked if he had the strength to continue after Tuesday’s defeat, Simeone’s answer was an unusual one.

“Not now, definitely not now,” Simeone said, leaving doubts over his intentions this summer.

There have been similar queries put to Simeone over the years, 14-and-a-half of them, since he took over at the helm of the Rojiblancos.

Usually they have surfaced in moments like these, painful knock-outs, that Atletico have suffered repeatedly. None hurt more than the two final defeats by rivals Real Madrid in 2014 and 2016. The seasons since have largely been frustrating, despite landing La Liga in 2021, even though the task of competing with Spain’s two giants in Barcelona and Real Madrid is a difficult one.

“We’ve grown enormously in every aspect, we’re a club recognised in Europe and the world,” said Simeone. “But the fans want to win. Getting to a semi-final isn’t enough.”

Whether Simeone will oversee the project is yet to be definitively answered, but every time there have been doubts over the past decade and a half, he has always chosen to stay.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2026