Safonov went the right way. That is all there is to say about the penalty itself. Gabriel hit it low and hard and the PSG goalkeeper got down and pushed it wide and Budapest erupted and the Arsenal players standing in a row in the centre circle looked at the ground.
Two hours of football and nine clean sheets in the Champions League this season and it ended with Gabriel’s penalty going the wrong side of the post.
THE FINAL
PSG had most of the ball. They always do. Arsenal sat, stayed compact, pressed when they could press, and for most of the two hours it looked like one goal might be enough to win it. Saka had the moment in the second half. Safonov saved it well. Kvaratskhelia got in behind Mosquera three times in the second half and Mosquera got back and dealt with it three times. Dembele hit the side netting in extra time and then rattled the post and Arsenal were somehow still level going into the shootout.
Then penalties.
PSG win
Rice scored. Saka scored. Odegaard scored. Trossard scored. Gabriel walked to the spot. Four-four. He needed to score to keep it going. He did not.
THE SIX SEASONS
September 2020. Arsenal were eighth. Arteta had been in the job less than a year. £27m to Lille for a 22-year-old centre-back that most Arsenal supporters had never watched play. It did not look like the start of anything in particular.
Through the seasons where the title came close and got away. Through the squad being pulled apart and rebuilt. Through Saliba arriving and the partnership forming and the nine clean sheets in this Champions League campaign. He was present through all of it and loud through all of it, the one in the defence who took everything personally, who treated every game like it mattered enormously whether or not it actually did. Four goals this season. The Premier League title eleven days ago. A Champions League final on Saturday night.
THE NUMBERS THAT MATTER
Nine clean sheets in fourteen Champions League games this season. Six goals conceded across the whole campaign. The clean sheet record for a single Champions League season is ten. Arsenal needed one more in Budapest and almost got it.
In the league, twenty-six goals conceded, the fewest in the division. The Saliba and Gabriel partnership has been the foundation of everything Arteta built this season and the numbers show it without needing anyone to say so.
He went to the spot in the shootout as the player who had conceded fewer goals than almost anyone else in European football this season. Safonov still went the right way.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER
Arteta got to him before anyone else. The manager moved quickly across the pitch and Gabriel stood with his hands on his face and Arteta was right there. The rest of the Arsenal squad gathered around him gradually.
Arteta got to him before anyone else. He said afterwards that Gabriel is one of the most important players he has ever worked with. Nobody watching needed him to say it.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
The Premier League is won. Nothing that happened in Budapest takes it away. But the eleven days between the trophy being confirmed and the final in Budapest were the eleven days when a double felt genuinely possible. Arsenal had not been in a Champions League final since 2006. They got there. Then they lost it in a shootout, which is its own specific kind of pain because every player who scores in a shootout just extends the time before the decisive moment. Gabriel’s was the decisive moment.
He is 28. Arteta is staying. Arsenal are in the Champions League next season.
BUDAPEST
There is an image that stays. Gabriel standing alone at the edge of the penalty area, hands covering his face, the PSG celebrations happening in a blur behind him. The Puskas Arena lit up. The Arsenal supporters in their corner of the ground completely silent.
He spent six seasons helping build something at this football club. Helped them go from eighth to Premier League champions. Reached a Champions League final. Walked up to take the most important penalty anyone has asked him to take and Safonov read it and went the right way.
Next season starts in August. It already matters again.