Rice ‘devastated’ by CL final defeat but vows Arsenal will be back
· Yahoo Sports
A “devastated” Declan Rice insisted Arsenal will not be defined by their Champions League defeat to Paris Saint-Germain – and vowed to use the emotional agony as fuel to win the competition next season.
Arsenal’s bid to end their 140-year wait for the biggest trophy in European club football ended in failure after a 4-3 penalty shootout defeat at the Puskas Arena in Budapest.
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Eberechi Eze and Gabriel both missed their spot-kicks after Ousmane Dembele had cancelled out Kai Havertz’s sixth-minute opener to allow PSG to become just the second team to retain their Champions League crown.
Arsenal’s crushing defeat arrived only six days after they were presented with the Premier League trophy in jubilant scenes at Selhurst Park.
“The overriding emotion is that we are devastated that we have lost the Champions League final,” said Rice. “Penalty shootouts are a lottery, and we were on the losing end of that. But it doesn’t define us.
“We started the season in July in Singapore on pre-season, and we are coming up to July again and the season is only just over, our 63rd game in all competitions. We are proud of each other, proud of how far we have come.
“To get the Premier League over the line was a dream come true and to win the Champions League would have been extra special. But it wasn’t meant to be.
“That’s football. We are gutted. We move on. There have been so many top players who took so many years to win their first Champions League and this is the way it is.
“We are going to take that loss, move forward and use these emotions and feelings to go on to win this competition in the future. Seeing that trophy, and seeing them lift that, we want that, we want that success, so we will be back, that’s for sure.”
Rice and his team-mates departed the Hungarian capital in the hours after their cruel loss ahead of Arsenal’s open-top bus parade to mark the club’s first league title in 22 years on Sunday afternoon.
Mikel Arteta’s men ended three years of finishing runners-up in the league to see off Manchester City to land the title.
And after a quarter-final and semi-final exit in the Champions League was followed by defeat in Saturday’s showpiece across three consecutive years, Rice has vowed to draw on their domestic near-misses as inspiration.
He continued: “In my first season with Arsenal we went out in the quarters, my second season we went out in the semis, and tonight we lost in the final and it is the same with the Premier League. It was three years of coming second, and to win it was incredible, and I can’t describe the feeling of winning that.
“But having lost the Champions League final I now have that feeling of wanting to come back and lift that trophy. I am sure we will be back.
“This club has got really exciting times coming, it is on an upward trajectory, we are going to go again next year, we are going to be ready, and we will stick together and keep fighting.”