"Up to that point Arsenal and Chelsea had produced something that felt like the football equivalent of having your eyes descaled with a wire brush. This was a dense, gristly kind of physical ballet. Johan Cruyff once said that in football the clock is never your friend. It's either moving too fast or too slowly. Here the clock didn't really seem to move at all, or to be going backwards. The clock hated everyone."
"And then suddenly, as it began to dawn that this really would actually end, it was school's out for summer. It was the Gloucestershire cheese rolling championships. It was drunken farmers falling down a hill, as Arsenal broke, the pitch emptied, and Kai Havertz found himself all alone and through on goal. Havertz had time to tiptoe around Robert Sanchez and roll the ball into the net, killing off this semi-final second leg, 1-0 on the night, 4-2 on aggregate."
A bruising, physical semi-final unfolded as Arsenal and Chelsea engaged in a dense, gristly contest that felt like prolonged agony before a sudden release. The clock seemed to stall and even go backwards amid heavy, slow-paced play. In the final seconds Kai Havertz broke through, rounded Robert Sanchez and rolled the ball into the net, making it 1-0 on the night and 4-2 on aggregate, sparking jubilant celebrations among the Chelsea substitutes and crowd. Arsenal's season remains upward: a Carabao Cup final secured, league lead maintained, Champions League path intact, and a condensed fixture schedule making each victory essential as the campaign narrows.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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