Arsenal 3 – 0 GNK Dinamo Zagreb – Match Report

Fast Rice

Dinamo went into this recreation with a brand new supervisor in Fabio Cannavaro and never having performed a aggressive recreation for a month as a result of Croatian league’s winter break, we caught them chilly after simply 104 seconds by surgeing right into a quickfire lead.

Martinelli attacked the left facet and teed up Havertz within the space, who laid the ball off completely into the trail of Rice who thundered a half-volley into the web to register his first Champions League aim, and our quickest within the competitors for a decade.

It was the beginning Mikel Arteta would have dreamed of, however the floodgates wouldn’t open within the opening 45 minutes, regardless of our greatest efforts.

Rice was solely thwarted from sending one other shot goalwards from a harmful place by a high-quality sliding block by Maxine Bernauer, whereas Gabriel – who performed as soon as for Dinamo Zagreb on mortgage from Lille again in 2018 – rose highest to satisfy an Odegaard nook however nodded it inches extensive of the goal.

No Croatian staff has ever received away from house towards an English facet within the European Cup or Champions League, and Dinamo by no means seemed like bucking that development. The guests stifled us by making an attempt to sluggish the sport down as a lot as doable, and provided little risk earlier than half-time, failing to register a shot on track within the first half for the third straight Champions League recreation.

However Martinelli was offering loads of vigorous moments to counteract that, and he had our subsequent try on 40 minutes when he took the ball off Odegaard’s toes to blast goalwards however the ball sailed straight to Ivan Nevistic within the Dinamo aim who escaped into the altering rooms nonetheless in with an opportunity of a consequence.