Max Dowman scored a brace including a wondergoal in the Arsenal u19 win over Bayern Munich on Wednesday, with Luis Munoz making history in the same game.
After a dismal first four games in Arsenal’s UEFA Youth League campaign, the team went into their fifth match against Bayern Munich knowing that anything other than a win would mean elimination.
Max Dowman dropped down for the encounter, and 13-year-old Luis Munoz was called up to the u19 squad for the very first time. But there was bad news ahead of the game, as Andre Harriman-Annous had to withdraw with an injury problem.
The match then started poorly, with Bayern’s Yll Gashi pouncing on a bad pass by Ife Ibrahim to steal the ball and score for 1-0.
Dowman was unsurprisingly the player to get Arsenal back in it, converting a driven low cross from Kyran Thompson for 1-1 in the 38th minute. But it took a penalty save from Jack Porter to keep things level going into the half-time break.
Following up his first-half assist, Thompson gave Arsenal the lead in the 70th minute by sliding the ball under the Bayern goalkeeper after a headed pass by team captain Louie Copley.
Seven minutes later, Ceadach O’Neill poked home a cross by Josh Ogunnaike to make it 3-1, capitalising on poor Bayern defending.
Bayern weren’t quite done yet, with Ljubo Puljic scoring a rebound in the 83rd minute for 3-2. Arsenal responded with a few substitutions, including Luis Munoz, with the talented 13-year-old becoming the youngest player in the history of the UEFA Youth League.
But it was Dowman who made sure of the result in injury time with the best moment of the match. Receiving the ball on the right, he cut inside one defender, nutmegged a second, performed a roulette spin to beat a third, then chipped the keeper.
Unfortunately, Monaco’s win over Pafos in another of Wednesday’s matches means that Arsenal were eliminated anyway, despite having one game left against Club Brugge.
The Gunners sit three points behind 22nd-placed Monaco, the only team in the play-off places still within reach. But that would require Monaco losing to Galatasaray, who are a point ahead of Arsenal and would finish ahead of both teams with a win.
As a result, it’s guaranteed that whatever happens in the Monaco-Galatasaray game, one of the two teams will finish above Arsenal, eliminating the Gunners.
The full highlights of the Arsenal-Bayern match are available here.
Arsenal u19 lineup vs Bayern Munich
Porter, Clarke, Copley, Dowman, Ibrahim, Ogunnaike, O’Neill, Bailey-Joseph, Hamill, Salmon, Thompson
Substitutes
King (for Hamill, 65), Munoz (for Ogunnaike, 85), Nwaneri (for O’Neill, 85), Dudziak (for Thompson, 85), Pedro (for Bailey-Joseph, 90+1), Phillips, Julienne, Onyekachukwu
What’s next?
Many of the u19s will now prepare for the u18 north London derby away to Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, November 29th at 11:00 GMT. The u19 team itself won’t be in action again until December 10th, for that last Youth League game away to Club Brugge.