Arsenal vs. AC Milan: How the Game Really Should Have Ended

For a minute there, the Gunners had us going.

Three first-half goals had brought the aggregate to a manageable 4-3. Arsenal, somehow and some way, were still in with a fighting chance to get through to the Champions League quarterfinals thanks to a crucial Stephan El Shaarawy miss just before the half.

I'll readily admit that my mind was already heading full-tilt down a wonderfully poetic track, charting out the hyperbole and adjectives I'd use to recap Arsenal's greatest-ever European night.

But alas, that's not how life works.

Arsenal failed to land that fourth goal, and despite cleaning out the Rossoneri 3-0 in a match in which Ruud Gullit said Milan played like "spoiled little kids" in the first half, they bow out in the Champions League Round of 16 for the second season in a row.

But why not envisage what might have been? It's far more fun. Here's my best stab at the best possible finish Arsenal could have ever envisioned in Tuesday's match.

We pick up the action at halftime in the Arsenal dressing room.

Robin van Persie: "That's it, guys. We're in this. Milan don't stand a fighting chance if we keep this pressure up."

Tomas Rosicky: "Robin's right. Milan are more open than the interstate at dawn. Not that I ever drive at that ungodly hour. Wait, I'm getting off topic. Let's make Djamel Mesbah wish he'd never joined Milan this summer. Theo, do you think you can run him ragged?"

Theo Walcott looks up. He was attending to the Thierry Henry shrine he maintains in his locker. "Uh...kinda busy here guys. But yeah, I can."

Arsene Wenger walks into the room. The players, once boisterous, grow quiet in anticipation.

"Lads," Wenger says, "If we don't get past Milan, I've promised to do Allegri's laundry for a month. No pressure." 

Arsenal's players wait a beat, then begin chanting and yelling furiously before storming back onto the pitch, only to realize that the half has only lasted two minutes. Somewhat cowed, they head back into the locker room and hydrate for 10 minutes before returning.

Kickoff. 46th minute. As Robin van Persie passes Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is furiously rearranging his ponytail, he notices the lanky Swede looking bereft.

It dawns upon van Persie that Ibrahimovic has left his hair tie in the locker room, and thus has no way to keep his iconic ponytail in place. Ibra will now have to play the second half with sweeping bangs, looking like he lost a bet.

Van Persie laughs and decides not to further add to Ibrahimovic's misery with a well-timed Severus Snape look-alike joke.

47th minute: Arsenal have begun the half on the front foot. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is winding left-back Ignazio Abate this way and that until the Milan man spins out furiously like a top.

The England teenager gets to the end line and fires his cross back across goal, where Robin van Persie nutmegs Mesbah twice before trying to moonwalk his way into the net. While dribbling.

The English commentator presiding over the match unleashes a perfectly-timed "Oh snap!" when he witnesses this development.

Wenger stifles a laugh, then half-heartedly chastises his talismanic striker for scuppering the chance. He has a sixth sense that more will be coming.

50th minute: Ibrahimovic checks back into the middle third for a pass. Upon receiving it, he sees Laurent Koscielny arriving to defend out of the corner of his eye.

Koscielny makes to put his forearm to Zlatan's back to fend him off, only for his opponent to flop furiously like a fish out of water before going limp on the ground.

Referee Damir Skomina, who unbeknownst to everyone has "Zlatan" tattooed on his right pectoral,  rushes over and asks Ibrahimovic if he is alright before shooting daggers at Koscielny and shaking his head in blatant disregard.

Koscielny shrugs and points to his own tattoo of Bart Simpson. He couldn't care less.

53rd minute: Robin van Persie passes to Theo Walcott to bring him into the play. Walcott takes one look at Mesbah arriving in defense and nearly dies from excitement.

He flies at the Algerian defender before touching past and barreling ahead. Mesbah tries to body check him, but fails miserably and instead goes flying out of bounds where he collides with manager Massimiliano Allegri.

Arsene Wenger saunters past the hapless scene. Once he's passed Allegri, he looks back and says, "Maybe you should have bought some better players."

By this point Walcott has already nutmegged keeper Christian Abbiati and has gotten down to his knees to head the ball cheekily into the back of the net.

Pat Rice puts on his dancing pants and does a furious jig along the sidelines. Andrei Arshavin, sitting in the Emirates stands rather than watching his new side play against Benfica, comes down and joins him.

The game enters a brief lull following that furious excitement. Van Persie peppers the post five times. Abbiati looks helpless on each of them.

Arsenal fans have begun chanting "Deportivo...Deportivo..." in reference to Milan's epic meltdown years before.

The traveling band of supporters begin chewing their banner reading "Game Over," which they'd brought in order to rub salt in Arsenal's first leg wound.

Wenger has begun reading the latest issue of The Economist on the sideline while Pat Rice continues dancing. The Arsenal No. 2 has begun inviting fans down to the touchline, and has set up a square dance.

60th minute: Thomas Vermaelen plays in Robin van Persie from deep. The Dutchman dribbles through the entire Milan back four before juggling the ball up and bicycling it home into the upper 90 from 18 yards out.

Wenger looks up from his reading, takes a sip of his cappucino, and thumbs his nose at Allegri. The aggregate is now in Arsenal's favor at 5-4.

Gary Neville, assistant commentating on the evening, rips off his three-piece suit to reveal a Thierry Henry Arsenal Invincibles jersey underneath. The stadium video board catches the action and splays it across the screen. The fans in attendance go bananas.

The rest of the match goes to plan. Arsenal have got the goals they need, and referee Skomina undergoes the sort of moral transformation usually reserved for works of, well, fiction.

The next time Ibrahimovic goes down as if he's been shot, Skomina rushes over once more, but this time he tells the Swede that his hair looks as stupid his pathetic attempt at a goatee and he gives him a yellow card for subjecting fans to that hideous combination.

Arsenal begin a 55-pass move that ends with them trying to pass the ball through the back of the net. Only it's Wojciech Szczesny who's bombed forward in attack. The Pole scuttles his final ball wide. Fans forgive him for the technical mishap.

The final whistle goes. Arsenal have accomplished what for all the world had appeared impossible. They are through to the quarterfinals against all odds—some of which had given them a 5 percent chance of passing through.

Instead of falling to the pitch in exhaustion-laced despair, as we saw after the final whistle in the "real" game, Tomas Rosicky leads the team on a celebratory lap, somehow finding the energy in the legs through sheer adrenaline.

The comeback has ended the way it should have. All is well in north London, if only until the next match.