When Eddie Nketiah was six years old, he watched Arsenal lose the Champions League final to Barcelona. When he was 19 he was part of the squad that lost to Chelsea in the final of the Europa League.
Those two disappointments – felt even more keenly perhaps as a boyhood Arsenal fan himself – are part of his motivation to help fire Arsenal to European glory this season.
In fact, it has been more than a generation since we lifted silverware in any continental competition – the now-defunct European Cup Winners’ Cup back in 1994 – and we’ve suffered heartbreak in four European finals since then.