Raya has kept the most clean sheets of any goalkeeper in Europe’s top five leagues, with his 22 across all competitions four clear of Inter’s Yann Sommer.

The former Brentford goalkeeper has become a big presence at Arsenal and is part of the team’s leadership group.

He made a vital save to deny Maxi Araujo early on in Tuesday’s match, tipping a thumping strike on to the crossbar before making three saves late on to keep the tie level before Havertz’s winner.

“It’s something that I’m there for. I’m trying to help the team as much as possible in any single action, not just defending but commanding and on the ball,” Raya told Amazon Prime.

The clean sheet was Raya and Arsenal‘s seventh in the Champions League this season – the most of any goalkeeper and any side in the competition.

“That’s something we’ve worked on a lot. It’s so important for us, those clean sheets make it easier to win games. It showed tonight, scoring in the last minute and keeping that clean sheet decides those type of games,” Raya said.

The goalkeeper’s acrobatic saves are not the only impressive aspect of his game.

Raya is given a lot of responsibility with the ball at his feet and his passing range and decision-making make Arsenal a better attacking side.

“That’s the evolution of the game,” Arteta said. “The keeper in the last few years has changed and evolved rapidly, and the amount of things that we ask him to do, it’s a lot.

“But many positions have very similar situations and demands right now, and the players have to adapt to that.

“Apart from the qualities of David, the courage, the will to do certain things, that’s when you can reach another level.”

But the Gunners boss would not be drawn on if he thought that Raya was the best goalkeeper in the world.

“He’s extraordinary, magnificent, incredible,” Arteta said. “I don’t know the right adjective. We are so happy to have him.”

Raya has 15 clean sheets in 31 Premier League matches this season, the most in the division.

He shared the Golden Glove trophy with Nottingham Forest‘s Matz Sels in 2024-25 – but Arsenal will hope that if Raya lifts that personal accolade again, it will mean they have secured silverware as a team too.

England head coach Thomas Tuchel made the journey to Madrid on his latest World Cup reconnaissance mission and was richly rewarded by a thrilling Champions League tie between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

Tuchel’s eyes were trained on Real Madrid pair Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jude Bellingham, as well as captain Harry Kane in his role as Bayern’s prime goalscorer.

He will have left with suspicions confirmed about Alexander-Arnold, as well as concrete evidence from Bellingham and Kane that they are surely indispensable when England’s World Cup campaign kicks off against Croatia in Arlington on 17 June.

Champions League nights at the Bernabeu are always special occasions, with supporters swarming around the magnificent arena hours before kick-off and thousands of fans clad in white gathering on Plaze de los Sagrados Corazones to welcome Real Madrid’s team bus.

To add to the drama, a warm Madrid afternoon suddenly turned to blackened skies and a deluge to set a spectacular stage for this meeting of European heavyweights.

As a classic unfolded, the game held contrasting fortunes for those Tuchel had under his microscope.

Alexander-Arnold is perhaps the most intriguing case study of the trio Tuchel was scrutinising, lavishly gifted and playing at the club most regard as the world’s biggest, and yet seemingly with no part to play in England’s summer strategy.

The 27-year-old, who moved from Liverpool last summer, has had a rocky introduction to life at Real and also suffered the ignominy of being left out of Tuchel’s 35-man England squad for friendlies against Uruguay and Japan.

And then, if that was not painful enough, when Tuchel called on replacements, he ignored Alexander-Arnold in favour of Ben White, not a regular at Arsenal this season and someone who had gone into self-imposed exile after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

For Alexander-Arnold to change Tuchel’s mind at this late stage will not be easy, and his mixed display here may have confirmed misgivings about him rather than enhanced his prospects.

In a poor first half display, Alexander-Arnold not only wasted possession far too often, but also almost gifted Bayern a goal with pass straight to Michael Olise. He was then caught napping by former Liverpool team-mate Luis Diaz as the forward put Bayern in front.

Tuchel has voiced his concerns about Alexander-Arnold’s defending and this was it in full view. And yet he then showed why he has admirers who find his exclusion from Tuchel’s plans puzzling.

As Real finally woke up with Bayern leading 2-0, it was Alexander-Arnold who delivered a series of dangerous set-pieces before firing in an inviting low cross for Kylian Mbappe to pull a goal back.

This was Alexander-Arnold in microcosm, and was not the sort of performance to have Tuchel shuffling the names already formed in his mind for World Cup selection.

The inconsistent nature of his performance is confirmed by his pass completion rate of 69.2%, the lowest of anyone in the match.

MADRID — Sometimes that famous Bernabéu magic isn’t quite enough.

Real Madrid have had so many great UEFA Champions League nights at this stadium, beating often superior teams in frequently inexplicable circumstances. But in Tuesday’s 1-2 defeat to Bayern Munich, reality caught up with them, the comeback just out of reach.

Playing against a talented, confident, fluid Bayern team, Madrid spent the first hour looking quite ordinary. The visitors were superior, more than the game’s scoreline suggested. But as the second half went on, the dynamic slowly but surely changed. Madrid began to create a steady stream of chances, Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé getting ever closer.

When Mbappé did, eventually, pull a goal back in the 74th minute, the Bernabéu crowd, cautiously hopeful, found their voices, as Madrid pushed for more. But the equaliser never materialised, thanks largely to Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer and his outstanding nine saves.

By the final whistle, both teams had had 20 shots, creating similar numbers of chances (15-14 in Madrid’s favour, with three of Madrid’s classed by Opta as ‘big chances’ compared to Bayern’s two), although Bayern’s xG (expected goals) of 2.99 comfortably outstripped Madrid’s 1.97.

A one-goal margin means the tie is open as the teams head to Munich for next week’s return leg. “We’re alive,” coach Álvaro Arbeloa repeated several times, post-match.

“We could have scored more,” Real Madrid goalkeeper Andriy Lunin said afterwards. “The team reacted well. Neuer was the MVP.” Antonio Rüdiger agreed: “The best player was Neuer.”

Still, the feeling for much of this game was that Arbeloa’s team had found its level, its few strengths, and more weaknesses, exposed in the Champions League spotlight, against elite opposition.

Vincent Kompany’s Bayern dominated from the start, with two great chances to score – one from Dayot Upamecano, whose miss-hit, close-range shot was cleared off the line by Álvaro Carreras, and another from Serge Gnabry, who couldn’t take advantage of Thiago Pitarch‘s misplaced pass which left him in on goal facing Lunin. Eventually, they went ahead through Luis Díaz, finishing off a cleverly worked move involving Harry Kane and Serge Gnabry, in the 41st minute.

Kane’s goal to make it 0-2, just 20 seconds into the second half, made the comeback feel even more distant. Arbeloa’s halftime team talk must surely have involved Madrid starting aggressively, with intensity, taking the game to Bayern.

Instead, they were alarmingly passive: Vinicius Junior played a poor pass to Carreras, under pressure, who gave away possession cheaply. As Vinícius and Mbappé jogged back towards their own goal, Bayern worked the ball up to Kane, totally unattended outside the box, to stroke the ball past Lunin.

“We made two mistakes [for the goals],” Arbeloa said. “We lost the ball twice. We have to avoid that. Against these teams if you make mistakes, you pay for it.”

It was in the last half-hour that Madrid were at their most dangerous, Bayern tiring in their press, as the home side enjoyed more space to run into.

Three good chances came in seven minutes, just after the hour. First Vinicius Junior, played in by Upamecano’s weak header, tried to round Manuel Neuer, was forced wide and was unable to get his shot back on target. Then Mbappé went close twice, denied once by Neuer, before shooting across the face of goal shortly afterwards. Mbappé kept going.

“That’s the Mbappé we want to see,” Arbeloa said. “He was a constant threat.”

More threat came when Trent Alexander-Arnold got on the ball. His deliveries from the right had looked like one of Madrid’s most promising routes towards goal all night, and now he crossed for Mbappé, whose far-post shot crept over the line after being initially saved by Neuer.

As Madrid pushed for a second goal, there was danger, too, at the other end. Three times in the last minutes of the game, Bayern could have finished off the tie. Substitute Éder Militão — who improved Madrid significantly when he was introduced — blocked a cross bound for the six-yard box, before Bayern went close twice more, in the 89th and 91st minutes, wasting one three-on-one break.

Madrid’s task for the second leg in Munich next week will be made harder by the absence of their most consistent player this season, Aurélien Tchouaméni, who will be suspended, and has no natural replacement in midfield.

They will have to be bold, and play on the front foot, an approach alien to a team which has been more comfortable with a more conservative, deep block style.

“If any team can win in Munich, it’s Real Madrid,” Arbeloa insisted in his post-match news conference. They might.

Madrid could still produce something extraordinary and unexpected in Germany, as they have before. In Vinicius, Mbappé, Bellingham and Valverde, they have the players who make it possible.

But even with a much-improved last half hour here, what they did at the Bernabéu wasn’t sufficient. They’ll need to do more in Munich, and in reaching for that, will also be more vulnerable.