Pires pain – Robert Pires still flinches when he recalls Arsenal’s 2006 Champions League final loss to Barcelona, a night that ended with Jens Lehmann sent off and Pires being substituted for Manuel Almunia after 18 minutes. Now, with Arsenal back in Europe’s showpiece aga
When Robert Pires is asked about the 2006 Champions League final, his body reacts before his words do.
“It was a horrible moment for me,” the former Arsenal midfielder says. “The moment was very difficult. I was very upset because we lost. I had bought seats for all my family. Everyone was there.”
Arsenal’s only previous European Cup final finished at the Stade de France with Barcelona winning 2-1. The night turned in the opening act: goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was sent off after 18 minutes for bringing down Samuel Eto’o. and Pires was withdrawn soon after to allow backup goalkeeper Manuel Almunia to come on.
Pires remembers Arsenal’s bench sequence as grim inevitability. Arsène Wenger looked at the bench, looked back at him, and gave him “a look of grim inevitability,” Pires recalls—himself the man sacrificed to the chaos of that early red card.
Even now, 20 years later, he says he can still see the last image of himself in an Arsenal shirt: “forlornly trudging to the bench.” Two days after the final, Pires told Wenger he was leaving the club.
Then came the match itself—Barcelona scoring after Arsenal had drawn level. Campbell put Arsenal 1-0 ahead with the first of the two goals that mattered most to Pires’s memory (37’). but Eto’o restored Barcelona’s lead (76’) before Oleguer’s introduction marked the tactical churn that never quite let Arsenal settle. Belletti sealed it in the 81st minute.
Pires could only watch as Barcelona came from behind to win. “The Champions League is the best club competition,” he says. “When we went back to London, everyone was very, very sad.”
His heartbreak didn’t just stay with him as a story from the past. The former midfielder, now 52, still carries the urgency of unfinished business—desperate for Arsenal to go one better and lift a first European Cup in their 140-year history.
That chance arrives in Budapest on Saturday, when Arsenal meet Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final.
For Pires, the stakes are personal and collective at the same time. He also describes the contrast between that night and what Arsenal have become under Mikel Arteta—one in which the mindset appears to have shifted.
“Of course I hope and I wish to see Arsenal win the Premier League and the Champions League, because they can make history,” Pires says. “And I think Arsenal deserve it.”
He points to the raw fact that Arsenal already know how to carry disappointment in Europe. “After their fall last season (losing to PSG in the semi-finals), they are now very close to winning the Champions League. For the moment, everything is positive for Arsenal.”
Arteta’s rise is central to that optimism. Pires doesn’t frame it as luck or timing; he frames it as learning—how the team now manages pressure, communicates better, and believes deeper.
“They can do it because they have good quality, a good team, great talents,” he says. “And it’s all because Mikel Arteta is one of the best managers in the UK.”
He highlights a detail that stands out in his telling: Arsenal look like a team that has stopped treating big moments as lessons and started treating them as expectations. Pires says the repeated disappointments—three consecutive seasons as runners-up—have hardened the squad psychologically.
“Between the last season and this season, mentally there has been a change, because Arteta has learned about this,” Pires says. “The communication between Arteta and the players (has improved) as well. I think he has found something new. He’s intelligent, he’s smart.”
That “something new” is not just training-ground talk. Pires uses the example of Arteta identifying Eberechi Eze, saying: when Arteta says “I want this guy (Eberechi) Eze”, it’s because he knows he can help Arsenal.
Pires also insists the story is bigger than the starting XI. “And all the Arsenal players, they are very important, it’s not just the starting line-up. Even the guy on the bench is very important. You need the old players, you need the young players like Max Dowman, like Myles Lewis-Skelly. The team is the team.”.
He describes the team’s style as a return to the principles that once defined his own era under Arsène Wenger. Pires believes there are echoes of the Invincibles.
“I think Arsenal have the same DNA (as the Invincibles),” he adds. “In my time with Arsene Wenger, it was to try to play good football. Today with Mikel Arteta, it’s the same.”
He draws a line from his old midfield spine to the modern one. In his view, Declan Rice is the difference-maker in how Arsenal balance their game.
“When you have a player like this, you are more comfortable with your team,” Pires says. “He can make the balance between the defence, between the attack. That’s why Declan is very good. He’s a modern midfielder. They have a lot of activity on the field. Technically, he’s very good. Good quality on the cross, at corners. He can create assists. He’s very complete.”.
Arsenal’s defensive foundation, he argues, is where the final could tilt. PSG arrive with world-class attackers in Ousmane Dembélé, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Désiré Doué, but Pires believes it could be Arteta’s back line that holds the key.
“It has become the foundation of Arsenal’s rise, combining physicality with a tactical discipline that has made them one of Europe’s hardest teams to break down,” Pires says.
This season, he points to the numbers: in the Champions League, across 14 games, Arsenal have conceded just six goals and kept nine clean sheets.
“Arsenal have a very good defence,” he explains. “But when I talk about defence, it’s not only the four defenders and the goalkeeper. It’s the team, they work together. And for Arteta, that’s very important.”
Pires doesn’t pretend PSG don’t have the edge on paper. “I think PSG are favourites because they have the best team in Europe,” he says. “But Arsenal, they have a good argument to beat them. They have great players too.”
There’s another layer to the emotion: Pires sees symmetry in Arsenal’s return to Europe’s biggest stage two decades after that agony of Paris.
Back then, Wenger’s team arrived as underdogs for the final against a Barcelona side on the cusp of a golden era. Xavi and Andres Iniesta were on the bench, and Lionel Messi was not yet in the matchday squad.
Now, Arsenal are once again carrying history into the stadium where it hurts to remember—and hopes to rewrite.
Pires also compares Arteta’s Invincibles-like spirit to the players who once made Wenger’s side feel inevitable. He cites Patrick Vieira and Declan Rice in the same breath—both, in his view, are leaders who let a team settle into its identity.
Finally, the message he wants Arsenal to hear is simple, because he’s lived what happens when details turn into nightmares.
Pires tells the players: “Just be concentrated, focused and enjoy this moment. It’s like me 20 years ago when we played against Barcelona.”
His demand is clear—leave with the trophy.
“Of course, the objective is to leave with the trophy,” Pires says. “All of them have a good opportunity. And this is a great moment. Final of the Champions League for the club, for the fans. It’s very important.”
MISRYOUM Sports News Arsenal Paris Saint-Germain Robert Pires Mikel Arteta Champions League final Budapest Stade de France 2006 final Jens Lehmann Samuel Eto'o Manuel Almunia Invincibles Declan Rice Eberechi Eze Ousmane Dembélé Khvicha Kvaratskhelia Desire Doue Max Dowman Myles Lewis-Skelly
Lehmann got sent off and that’s why they lost, pretty simple.
I don’t even follow soccer like that but wow buying seats for family?? That’s brutal. You can tell he’s still mad about it 20 years later.
Wait so Pires got subbed out because the keeper messed up? I thought it was like a tactical thing lol. Also PSG dream? Isn’t PSG not even in the Champions League anymore or am I mixing stuff up with another team
Arsenal always seemed cursed in big finals, even when they’re “back.” The whole bench look of grim inevitability sounds like that movie moment where someone knows it’s over. And 18 minutes??? That’s literally nothing. I feel bad for his family though, like imagine all those seats and then bam goalie red card.