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Just when they thought they had seen the back of Harry Kane, Arsenal were told the goal assassin who has always loved to score against them is riding back into town.
No one has scored more goals against Arsenal for Tottenham than the England captain and now he is coming back for a go with another team in the Champions League quarter-finals.
The final flourish of the Champions League as we know it sent Kane back to north London with a Bayern Munich side who have made a habit of humiliating Arsenal in the competition and whetted English appetites for a battle between the nation’s two most exciting young talents in the last eight tie between Manchester City and Real Madrid.
As the names of the clubs were drawn, followed by one gasp after another, it felt like fantasy football. It felt as if, for nine days in April, the football world will stop to sit back and enjoy the feast that will be laid out in front of it.
Harry Kane has been pitted against his old rivals Arsenal in the next round of the Champions League
Manchester City will again get the chance to show his talents against Real Madrid
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard will lead his side out in a final-eight tie against Bayern Munich
A reorganisation of the competition next season means the group stage will be replaced by a single 36-team league where each team plays eight matches before the top teams are kept apart by a seeding system in the knockout stages.
The idea of Real versus City in the last eight will be obsolete by next year. The thrill of unpredictability that yesterday’s draw brought, with arguably the best four teams in the competition all in one half of the bracket, will be gone.
Despite the imbalance — or perhaps because of it — it was hard to avoid the conclusion that the last iteration of the old-style format saved the best for last. That is the beauty of a random draw. It is what has given the FA Cup third round its magic for so long. It is what has made the FA Cup the greatest cup competition in the world.
And the thrill of this year’s Champions League lottery applies particularly to fans of the English clubs, who are also contemplating the enticing prospect of a City-Arsenal semi-final if both teams progress.
City v Real Madrid is the tie of the round. Many will say it might as well be the final and that the winner of the Champions League will emerge from it. City, the holders, are the team to beat and, partly because they dismissed Madrid so emphatically last season, they will be the favourites to vanquish Carlo Ancelotti’s side as they pursue an astonishing repeat of their Treble.
But Madrid may put up a sterner fight than last season, not least because they have in their ranks Jude Bellingham, who has made such a stellar impression at the Bernabeu since he was signed from Borussia Dortmund in the summer.
Bellingham has made as good a start to life in Madrid as a player could, including scoring two goals against Barcelona at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys on Montjuic in his first appearance in El Clasico last October.
His winner, in a 2-1 victory, came in stoppage time at the temporary home of Madrid’s greatest rivals.
Jude Bellingham’s first taste of quarter-final Champions League action with Real Madrid pits him against Man City
If Bellingham has established himself as Madrid’s marquee player, then the tie will pitch him in against Phil Foden, his England team-mate, at a time when Foden’s progress has accelerated to a point where he, too, is considered one of the foremost influences at a club who possess such a wealth of attacking talent.
But if City-Madrid is the pick of the bunch, there is something deliciously appealing about Arsenal v Bayern, too.
Most obviously, it is in the prospect of the return of Kane to north London to renew his acquaintance with Gunners fans who came to dread facing him in derbies against Spurs.
Kane holds the all-time record for goals in those derbies with 14 and, with Bayern looking likely to miss out on the Bundesliga title to Bayer Leverkusen, the England captain will be desperate to come out on top against his old enemy to further his dream of making his first trophy the biggest club trophy of all.
That old picture of Kane in an Arsenal shirt as a kid is being recycled again, obviously, but for Mikel Arteta’s team, it was confirmation in black and white that they have rejoined the elite of European football.
Kylian Mbappe will take on Barcelona for what may be the first of many tumultuous battles if he ends up joining Real Madrid
Robert Lewandowski
They will also have to get used to the idea that the pre-eminence of the Premier League, and the fact they are top of it, means they are regarded as one of the favourites to win the competition.
‘We now face one of the best teams in Europe,’ Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel said, when he was told of the draw. ‘They’ve been playing consistently at the top level for two years. They’re a homogenous, dangerous team, they score a huge number of goals. We’ll be ready, though. We know our qualities.’
Arsenal know Bayern’s qualities, too. Bayern beat them 10-2 on aggregate the last time they met, in 2017. In fact, they have beaten them 5-1 on each of the last three occasions the two clubs have faced each other.
It is safe to say that Bayern have no chance of making it four. Arsenal are not lambs to the slaughter any more. Even Kane will know that this time, the odds will be stacked against him when he walks out at the Emirates.
