Arsenal v Atletico Champions League semi-final: Who said what

Key quotes after Arsenal beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 on aggregate to reach the Champions League final:

“It’s an amazing night. To live these kind of moments with our people, our players, everybody at the club, it’s just an incredible feeling. It makes sense, a lot of the things that we do and we go through, when you just see so many happy faces and so many people proud of what we are doing. It was unbelievable right from the beginning. The manner that our supporters waited for us at the stadium, the energy, the passion that they put in, it was just great to witness.

— Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said that the club’s supporters rose to the occasion at the Emirates.

“You’re taking me away from the celebrations. It’s so beautiful, you’ll have to see what it means to us, what it means to the fans. You know, this game is a high-pressure game, it means a lot to both sides. We managed to manage it well and take ourselves to the final, so we’re happy.”

— Bukayo Saka, who scored the only goal in the second leg, told Amazon Prime that the crowd was a huge factor in Arsenal’s win.

“I don’t think you can underestimate what we’ve done in this competition up to this point. I think we had every right to celebrate that moment. It’s such a big moment. Champions League final. The most prestigious tournament in club football. It’s a proud moment for the boys, for the club. We’re just trying to soak it all in.”

— Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice on the team’s celebrations.

“It’s been 20 years since Arsenal reached a final. When I arrived here, we started out in the Europa League. We have to keep going like this. We’re very strong defensively. We’ve got the best defence in the league, in the Premier League. Today, we did the job. We managed to score that goal before half-time. We defended well throughout the match.”

— Arsenal centre-back William Saliba spoke to Canal Plus about how far the team has come since he joined them.

“There’s nothing to say. We’re out! Congratulations to Arsenal because they compete well. I like their team and their coach. They work in a consistent way with their economic resources. Congratulations to them, we’ll keep working hard and we won’t get bogged down in a detail that was obvious.”

— Atletico coach Diego Simeone refused to be drawn on a potential penalty not given to his side when talking to Movistar.

“Very hurt, totally gutted, but proud of my team and our fans. We gave everything. We could have scored goals, it just didn’t want to go in — the same thing happened in the first leg. Football is about clinical finishing, they were more clinical than us.”

— Atletico captain Koke spoke to Movistar about his team’s inability to take their chances.

“It all happened so quickly. What I felt was that at the moment I tried to shoot he knocked me off balance and I couldn’t shoot properly. That’s what I felt. The referee in some moments like that didn’t go to the VAR, the same as for an incident with Antoine (Griezmann), and (the decisions) didn’t go our way.”

— Atletico midfielder Giuliano Simeone on missing an open goal to equalise under pressure from Gabriel Magalhaes.

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