UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 2025/26 HIGHLIGHTS
Statistics on Champions’ League 2025-26: Semi-finals
Atletico Madrid vs Arsenal 1-1, 0-1 (agg 1-2)
*Arsenal have reached the Champions League final for the second time in their history and for the first time in 20 years.
*Arsenal have gone 14 consecutive matches without defeat (11 wins, 3 draws) for the first time in their European Cup/Champions League history.
*Their previous longest unbeaten run in the competition was 13 games (between March 2005 and April 2006).
*Arsenal’s 9 clean sheets in this Champions League season is the best such achievement since Chelsea in 2020-21 (also 9).
*Arsenal have kept 30 clean sheets across all competitions in a single season for the first time since 1993-94.
*In the first leg of this tie no goals were scored from open play (both from penalties); this is the first such occasion in a Champions League semi-final for the first time in 10 years, since 26 April 2016 (Manchester City vs Real Madrid 0-0).
*Arsenal’s Viktor Gyökeres, with his spot kick goal in the first leg, has converted each of his last 27 penalties for club and country, a run stretching back to March 2024.
PSG vs Bayern 5-4, 1-1 (agg 6-5)
*The first leg became the first ever Champions League semi-final match to see as many as five goals scored in the first half.
In the European Cup era (1955-1992), five goals were last seen in the first half of a semi-final first leg in 1982 (CSKA Sofia vs Bayern 3-2).
*For the first time, in a European semi-final (of any competition) both teams scored 4+ goals.
*In the Champions League history, only one knockout stage match before saw 4+ goals scored by each side (along with Chelsea vs Liverpool 4-4 in the 2008-09 quarter-final).
*This game became highest scoring semi-final match in Champions League history (since 1992).
In the European Cup era, a semi-final match with 9 goals was played once, on 5 May 1960 (Glasgow Rangers vs Eintracht 3-6).
*Considering all major European competitions, the history knows 3 semi-final matches with 9+ goals, including:
MTK vs Valencia 3-7 (Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, second leg, 1962).
*It was the third match in European Cup/Champions League history that ended 5-4 or 4-5, alongside:
MSK Zilina vs Dudelange 5-4 (1st qualifying round, 2007),
Benfica vs Barcelona 4-5 (League phase, 2025).
*Bayern last conceded five goals in the first leg of a European competition in 1991 (a 2-6 loss vs Copenhagen in the second round of the UEFA Cup).
*For the third time, the opponents have scored 6 goals against Bayern in a two-legged European tie, along with:
vs Dynamo Dresden (Round of 16, European Cup 1973-74),
vs Real Madrid (Quarter-finals, European Cup 2016-17).
*In the 2nd leg, Ousmane Dembélé has scored the third earliest goal in a Champions League semi-final (2 minutes 19 seconds), after:
Marcus Thuram (for Inter vs Barcelona in 2024-25, 30 seconds),
Kevin De Bruyne (for Manchester City vs Real Madrid in 2021-22, 1 minute 34 seconds).
*Luis Enrique took fewest games (77) to reach 50 wins as a coach in the Champions League history, surpassing Pep Guardiola (80).
*PSG’s Warren Zaïre-Emery and Désiré Doué are the fourth and fifth players to start 4 Champions League semi-finals before turning 21 years, after Nwankwo Kanu, Iker Casillas and David Alaba.
*Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is the second player to score 10 goals in a single Champions League season with Paris Saint-Germain, after Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2013-14.
*Kvaratskhelia is the first player to score or assist in seven consecutive knockout stage appearances in the same Champions League campaign.
*Vitinha has played in all 53 of PSG’s Champions League matches since joining the club in the summer of 2022: the longest run of any player in the club’s history in the competition.
*Bayern’s Manuel Neuer became the third oldest player (40 years 40 days) to play in a Champions League semi-final, behind Mark Schwarzer (41 years 206 days old) and Edwin van der Sar (40 years 187 days).
Harry Kane became just the second player in UCL history to score in six consecutive knockout stage appearances after Cristiano Ronaldo (April 2012 to April 2013). Kane’s series is not yet over and can be prolonged next season.
Ongoing is also his scoring streak in UCL overall: 7 games, the new record for English players in the competition (Steven Gerrard’s former record from 2008, a 5-game scoring run, is well beaten).