Arsenal in the Uefa Cup final: 17 May 2000

By Tony Attwood

In the 1999/2000 season Arsenal finished third in their Champions League group against  AIK, Barcelona and Fiorentina, and didn’t get through to the knock out stages, but instead dropped into the Uefa Cup – the precursor of the infamous Europa League.  Here are the results:

3rd Round

  • 25 November 1999: Arsenal 3 Nantes 0
  • 9 December 1999: Nantes 3 Arsenal 3

4th round

  • 2 March 2000: Arsenal 5 Deportivo La Coruna 1
  • 9 March 2000: Deportivo La Coruna 2 Arsenal 1

Quarter Final

  • 16 March 2000: Arsenal 2 Werder Bremen 0
  • 23 March 2000: Werder Bremen 2 Arsenal 4

In this second match Ray Parlour scored the first hat-trick of his career.

Semi final

  • 6 April 2000: Arsenal 1 Lens 0
  • 20 April 2000: Lens 1 Arsenal 2

The final: Arsenal v Galatasaray; 17 May 2000

Each side only got 12,000 tickets for the final – which caused annoyance, but those of us not there felt a certain relief, as an Arsenal fan was stabbed by Turkish supporters and there were over 60 arrests prior to the match – but there was little excitement in the match itself.   After a 0-0 draw it went to penalties, where utterly inexplicably (unless you subscribe to the view that referees can be bought to change things very slightly) the ref refused to toss for the end at which the penalties would be taken, and instead sent them down to the end where the Galatasary fans were.

The omens were bad.  Arsenal had already gone out of the League Cup and FA Cup on penalties.  Galatasaray were already Turkish double champions.

And the omens were correct: Šuker and Patrick Vieira missed penalties and Arsenal lost.  

The Arsenal team was

Seaman

Disox, Keown, Adams, Sylvinho

Parlour. Petit, Vieira, Overmars

Berkgamp, Henry

Subs: Lukic, Winterburn, Luzhny, Grimandi, Malz, Suker (115m) Kanu (75m)

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