Arsenal vs SS Lazio Tickets

After a six-season hiatus, Mikel Arteta led Arsenal to a superb second-place finish in the Premier League to secure a return to the UEFA Champions League for 2023/24, and no doubt Gunners fans will hope to see their side push hard to end their lengthy wait for a first-ever title in the competition.

Indeed, it’s true that during the latter years of Arsene Wenger’s long reign in charge of the club, some Arsenal fans will have grown dejected by the repeated nature of their seemingly inevitable knockout phase knockout, but what’s followed since the French manager left the club may well have left them wishing for a return to such events.

Between 2003/04 and 2016/17, Arsenal never once failed to first qualify for the UEFA Champions League, which is no mean feat, and then always made it through the initial group stage, which is a very credible achievement.

However, the manner of those knockout defeats took their toll, especially the last of those suffered by Wenger, a 10-2 aggregate loss to Bayern Munich, and Arteta and Arsenal will look to show more fight if they are to once again grace the competition in the manner which it deserves.

Lazio’s form in the UEFA Champions League has been far more circumspect in comparison, with their first qualification for the tournament coming in 1999/2000, coming after former England national team coach Sven-Goran Eriksson had taken the Rome-based club to the Serie A title.

They did well in their maiden appearance, qualifying from both the first and second group stages before losing to Valencia, an eventual finalist, in the Quarter-Finals.

In their next four appearances in the competition, they failed to make it to the knockout stage, but in 2020/21, they broke that run of form. In that instance, it was Bayern Munich that eliminated them from the competition in the Round of 16, doing so comfortably in a 6-1 aggregate victory.

Arsenal vs SS Lazio Head-to-Head

Arsenal and Lazio have faced each other in two previous European campaigns. In 1970, John Radford scored twice to secure a 2-2 draw at the Stadio Olimpico in the Second Round, and in the replay, he netted again, as did George Armstrong, to give the soon-to-be double winners passage to the next round.

2000 saw the teams meet for their first time in the UEFA Champions League, in the group stage, where Freddie Ljungberg scored twice in a 2-0 at Highbury, and the return fixture ended in a 1-1 draw with Pavel Nedved scoring for Lazio before Robert Pires equalized late on.

Arsenal vs SS Lazio Connections

In terms of players that have played for both Arsenal and Lazio, one example comes in the shape of Swiss international wide-man Stephane Lichtsteiner. The former Lille and Grasshopper man spent three seasons at Lazio before moving to Juventus in 2011, and in 2018, he ended up at Arsenal, where he didn’t make a massive impact in his only season at the club before he moved again; this time to Bundesliga side Augsburg.