Arsenal 3-0 Real Madrid: Declan Rice scores TWO stunning free-kicks with Mikel Merino also on target as rampant Gunners put one foot in Champions League semi-finals

Jude Bellingham stood with his hands on his hips, looked up at the big screen above a corner full of dancing and delirious Arsenal fans and puffed out his cheeks. 

It was a gesture that said everything. Real Madrid, the fifteen times champions of Europe, were on the verge of being bounced spectacularly out of a competition they have come to view as their personal playground.

Arsenal’s three second half goals had come at Real like machine gun fire. Two from Declan Rice’s sweeping right foot – remarkably the first successful free-kicks of a 338-game career – and another from the left of their makeshift centre forward Mikel Merino.

This was a 0-0 game as the hour mark approached yet by the time Merino’s shot found Thibaut Courtois’ bottom corner in the 75th minute, Carlo Ancelotti’s team were all but out of the tie.

We will not write the defending champions off just yet. They have suffered in this way before only to suffocate teams back at the Santiago Bernabeu. Next week in Madrid will still be a test for Mikel Arteta and his players.

But this was a statement performance nonetheless from Arsenal. They had called it the biggest night at the Emirates for 20 years and they decorated it with a performance to match. 

Declan Rice scored two stunning free-kicks as rampant Arsenal beat Real Madrid 3-0

Rice’s sensational strikes handed the Gunners control of the Champions League quarter-final

The opening goal proved to be the very first free-kick the midfielder has scored in his career

They were the better team in the first half. Steadily progressive and purposeful. Then, on the back of Rice’s two free-kick goals in minutes 58 and 70, they exploded into life to leave Real gasping for air in a surging red and white rip tide.

They say Rice doesn’t score enough goals, of course, and he doesn’t. The England star has only two in the Premier League this season. But these were two dead ball strikes that will not be beaten around Europe this year. 

Real’s goalkeeper Courtois had warned beforehand of Arsenal’s set piece threat but this was not what he meant. He was talking about corners. Here, as Rice delivered his two leather rockets towards his goal, one of the world’s best goalkeepers – a man who won Real a final almost on his own against Liverpool in Paris in 2022 – was reduced to diving only for show. 

No wonder Bellingham – a picture of frustration for most of the night – looked aghast. He has spent hours on England training pitches with Rice and will never have seen him produce much like this.

The night ended ingloriously for Real as their central midfielder Eduardo Camavinga was sent off in added time for a second yellow card. He will not play next week. 

But more pertinent at that point was that Arsenal’s goalkeeper David Raya had made but a single save of note all night. Courtois, conversely, was probably Real’s best and busiest player.

The Belgian’s goal had not been under siege in the first half but Arsenal’s threat had been clear. Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli had been progressive down the flanks. Three times, Saka beat the helpless David Alaba to cross low. 

Once, Courtois saved Rice’s header and then Martinelli’s follow up. Earlier, he had parried Thomas Partey’s drive after Martinelli delivered the ball from the other side.

Rice was able to lift the ball around the wall before finding the back of the net

He wheeled away to celebrate jubilantly, kickstarting a night Arsenal will not soon forget

Mikel Merino put Arsenal further ahead in the tie after bending home with aplomb

Thibaut Courtois scrambled to his right but could only watch on as Arsenal got their third

Courtois was equal to a rasping drive from Merino as the Gunners piled on the pressure

Eduardo Camavinga was sent off for his second yellow card deep inside stoppage time

Real were second best but in the game. Raya saved from Kylian Mbappe after Bellingham played him through while Vinicius Junior curled a shot wide.

At half time Carlo Ancelotti, the Real coach, would have known his team needed to find improvement but not for a moment would he have anticipated the brutality of Arsenal’s subsequent assault.

Saka – Arsenal’s best player at this point – won the free-kick that led to the first goal with a lateral run from right to left in the 58th minute. 

Rice was 25 yards out at least but took it with his right foot, curled the ball round the wall a yard outside the goalkeeper’s left post and then back again in to the corner. It was quite stunning and observed from the posh seats by Real’s old-time master of the art, the Brazilian Roberto Carlos.

Arsenal took strength from the goal and, with Real struggling to regain firm ground, almost scored again ten minutes later as Courtois denied Martinelli low down, Alaba blocked Merino’s follow up on the line and then the goalkeeper sprang up to tip the forward’s next shot over the bar. From the corner Bellingham cleared a Rice shot from the line.

It suddenly felt very chaotic and as much Real were trying to hang on they couldn’t. Arsenal were suddenly irresistible, made stronger and quicker by adrenaline and opportunity.

Madrid were simply blown away by their opponents and have it all to do at the Bernabeu

The nature of the defeat may leave further question marks over Carlo Ancelotti’s future

Rice’s second free-kick came from even further out in the 70th minute and found the same corner, just a little higher up. This time he was helped by a ‘wall’ of Arsenal players splitting in front of him. 

One from the training ground. Once again Courtois was diving just for the sake of it and then, as Rice led another foray forward five minutes later, Myles Lewis Skelly squared the ball across the area to Merino who scored expertly with a clipped left foot shot.

That may well turn out to be the decisive goal. A 2-0 lead to take to Spain would have felt significant. But the extra goal takes Real in to ‘one of those special nights’ territory and what will encourage Arteta is that Ancelotti’s team don’t look terribly likely to keep a clean sheet. Indeed they haven’t done so in ten games going back to the middle of February.

The drama of this game was spread across those magical 17 minutes in the second half. It was one of those sweet spots that teams hit occasionally, when absolutely anything feels possible. More broadly, Arsenal proved themselves superior over the course of the whole game.

Ancelotti spoke beforehand of the importance of experience in these contests. He knows his team have done remarkable things for him before. But the great Italian also described these games as ‘face to face’ and rarely has an opponent landed three such blows on his chin.

Bellingham and his team-mates will have been hearing the birds sing in their heads all the way back to the airport.