Bukayo Saka was seven years old when Arsenal last reached a Champions League final. Born in Ealing, raised in the club’s Hale End academy, he has become the face of everything Arsenal have spent six years constructing under Mikel Arteta. On Tuesday night at the Emirates, it was his goal that ended two decades of waiting.

Saka’s close-range finish in the 44th minute — a predatory tap-in after Atlético Madrid goalkeeper Jan Oblak parried Leandro Trossard’s low shot — sealed a 1-0 victory on the night and a 2-1 aggregate win in the semi-final. The Emirates, staging what the club called the biggest night in the stadium’s 20-year history, erupted.

Controlled Suffering

The second half was an exercise in controlled tension. Arsenal, who have kept nine clean sheets in this season’s competition and conceded just six Champions League goals all campaign, repelled everything Diego Simeone’s side could muster. The closest Atlético came was an 86th-minute chance that substitute Alexander Sørloth swung at and missed entirely.

Five minutes of stoppage time felt like an age. When the whistle finally came, Arteta sprinted onto the pitch to embrace his players before running to the home fans, leading a series of olés. The emotions were raw and unguarded. “I cannot be happier, prouder for everybody that is involved in this football club,” Arteta told reporters. “We have all been so aligned on the desire and ambition that we had.”

A Generation in the Making

Arsenal’s only previous Champions League final came in 2006, when a 10-man side lost to Barcelona in Paris. According to The Guardian, no club has played more European Cup or Champions League games without lifting the trophy. The weight of that statistic — the near-misses, the years of drift after the stadium move, the post-Arsène Wenger identity crisis — has burdened the club for a generation.

Arteta arrived in December 2019 to find a squad in disarray. The rebuild has been incremental, occasionally frustrating, and at times questioned by even the most patient supporters. But this season, everything has clicked. Arsenal have matched their club record of 41 wins in a single campaign — equalling a mark set in 1970-71, according to Opta — and remain unbeaten through 14 Champions League matches, the only team to achieve that in a single edition of the expanded format.

The Local Boy

Five of Arsenal’s outfield starters were English on Tuesday, the most in a Champions League starting XI for the club since 2009. Saka, the captain, is the centrepiece — a player whose connection to the club runs deeper than any transfer fee. According to Arsenal’s own statistics, he has been directly involved in 14 goals in 14 Champions League appearances at the Emirates. He will remember his costly miss in last season’s semi-final second leg against PSG. There were no regrets this time.

Budapest and Beyond

The final at the Puskás Aréna on May 30 — against either holders PSG, who eliminated Arsenal at this stage last season, or Bayern Munich — offers a shot at the club’s first European Cup. It may also be half of a historic double. Manchester City’s draw at Everton on Monday left Arsenal within touching distance of a first Premier League title since 2004.

“Everybody can feel a shift in energy and belief in everything,” Arteta said. His midfielder Declan Rice, outstanding again on Tuesday, was more direct. “When you have got confidence in football it is everything,” Rice told Amazon Prime. “Sunday now is a massive one.”

Arsenal’s construction project is nearly complete. The last brick is always the hardest to lay.

Sources