As well as seeing us reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the third successive season, last night was a momentous one as we completed a century of European matches at Emirates Stadium.
The first time we played a continental game at our current home was against Dinamo Zagreb, on August 23, 2006. The Champions League qualifier was just the second-ever match at the stadium, which ended in a 2-1 win with Freddie Ljungberg and Mathieu Flamini on target.
Since then we have played 72 Champions League matches and 28 in the Europa League, winning 69. We are currently on a run of five straight European wins, two shy of our best-ever winning streak which came in the Europa League between November 2018 and November 2019.
We’ve also lost just one of our past 23 European matches at Emirates Stadium – the Champions League semi-final reverse to Paris Saint-Germain last May. That was one of six last-four matches held at our home – three in Europe’s premier club competition and three in the Europa League.
A total of 143 players have turned out for us in a European game at Emirates Stadium, with Theo Walcott doing so more often than anyone else. The English forward featured 39 times at home across Champions League and Europa League fixtures, while Gabriel Martinelli is the player in the current squad with the most-such games, with 25.
| Theo Walcott | 39 |
| Aaron Ramsey | 32 |
| Laurent Koscielny | 32 |
| Mesut Ozil | 26 |
| Gabriel Martinelli | 25 |
We have scored 226 goals in the first 100 games, and have conceded only 74. Two players top the charts for us when it comes to adding to that total, with Robin van Persie and Walcott bagging 13 apiece.
| Robin van Persie | 13 |
| Theo Walcott | 13 |
| Cesc Fabregas | 10 |
| Alexis Sanchez | 9 |
| Bukayo Saka | 8 |
| Gabriel Martinelli | 8 |
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Mega quiz: Name every scorer in our UCL history
We have hosted European football in N5 in every season apart from 2021/22 since moving from Highbury, where we played 76 European fixtures in total. We have a better win percentage (69%) at our current home than our previous one (65.8%).
Our biggest European win at Emirates Stadium was 7-0 against Slavia Prague in October 2007, and we’ve registered six-goal successes against Braga, Ludogorets, BATE Borisov and Lens.
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Recalling 2007’s 7-0 record win over Slavia Prague
Making their first appearance in our corner of north London since 2002, Bayer Leverkusen became the 60th different team to play at Emirates Stadium in continental football. Olympiacos have made the most European appearances at our home with seven visits, while Bayern Munich have six.
Our 101st game will see Sporting Lisbon pitch up for the third occasion, and we’ll be looking to beat them on our turf for the first time, following a goalless draw in November 2018 and a 1-1 stalemate in March 2023 – one of two European penalty shootouts that have taken place in the century of matches, the other being our famous triumph over Porto in March 2024.
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