Emotions until the end in the confrontation between Bayer Leverkusen and Arsenal in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16. The Germans were very close to victory, but in the last minutes the Londoners managed to equalize for the final score 1-1.
Arsenal took the first risk in the 20th minute, when Martinelli hit the crossbar. However, the opening goal came in the second half and was scored by Leverkusen: Andrich headed in a corner to make it 1-0.
Arteta's team does not give up and pushes forward in the last minutes. When the match seemed closed, the decisive episode comes: a foul in the area against Madueke and the referee awards a penalty. From the penalty spot, Havertz – the former Leverkusen player – makes no mistake and equalizes the scores at 1-1. Thus, everything remains open for the return match in London. Despite this technical result of the "Gunners", Mikel Arteta appeared optimistic regarding the qualification issue: "We know how difficult it is to win against any opponent in this competition, especially away from home. There is a big factor there, maybe then you understand what we have achieved by winning eight games in a row in this competition, because it is so difficult that no one has done it before. We know this very well, we knew the importance of the match and the difficulty of the opponent, and now we have to finish it in London." "We will see the things we have improved, the situations we can create and we will try to be especially much more efficient in many simple things that we did not do so well today."
