Bayern Munich (1) 1 - 0 (0) Arsenal
Olympic Stadium, Munich. Wednesday 14th March 2001
UEFA Champions League, stage 2 match 6.

Arsenal came out for the second half looking a lot more confident, forcing Bayern to defend deeper and give us more chances.

Henry tried a couple of hooked goal attempts a bit like the goal he scored against Man Utd at Highbury this season. The second was particularly audacious and would have been a candidate for goal of the century. He received the ball with back to goal and a defender right up his backside, on the right corner of the box, and juggled it twice before smacking it behind him towards the far top corner. But it flew well over.

Lauren had the ball in the net on 56 minutes after another nice Arsenal move, but Pires, who received Cole's pass into the left hand side of the box and squared to create an open goal for Lauren, was correctly if narrowly given offside.

Half an hour to go and Arsenal made a double substitution, bringing Wiltord and Parlour on for Kanu and Ljungberg (with Pires moving to the left). Given Wenger's record of bringing more attackers on in games that absolutely need to be won, one can only assume that Kanu had a problem. With Lyon pulling level (another penalty, Sonny Anderson) 10 minutes later the potential need to have as many strikers on the pitch as possible became all too apparent.

As if they knew, Arsenal suddenly looked nervous again.

15 minutes to go, and Silvinho came on for Pires, taking his position in front of Ashley Cole.

Lizarazu created a great chance for himself after a quick free-kick. He turned well to give himself a better angle for a near post shot, but hit it into the side netting.

In the last minute Jancker missed a golden chance to make the win safe. He received a cross inside the box in front of Seaman, having beaten offside by being behind the ball (although he may have been offside as the ball was played out to the wing), but rushed the shot and Seaman dropped on to it easily.

Bayern pressed on in injury time with a few corners, Arsenal looking like they knew they could only hope now for a result in Moscow. Seaman made a great save from a Jeremies chip, with what turned out to be the last touch of the match.

So, Arsenal had lost. But in Moscow Spartak had hung onto the draw, so we're through. We finish on a worse overall record than Lyon (they have +4 GD against our -2!) but took 4 points off them in the head-to-heads so finish above them in second place. Lucky lucky Arsenal. Lyon also had the better record against Bayern.

One has to remember that, despite this being a disappointing Arsenal showing against not the greatest Bayern performance you'll ever see, in the grand scheme of things a 1-0 loss in Munich isn't so bad. Where Arsenal made things hard for themselves was with the 2 home draws which should have been wins. At the end of the day, we've scraped through thanks very much to Spartak Moscow. Who'd have predicted that after they thumped us in the first match?

Altogether now....

"Nil-one, to the Arsenal!

(with thanks to Michael Shade)

See this item for news of the draw.