Arsenal star beats Barcelona rival to award after 'unbelievable' heroics

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Evening Standard

·11 de dezembro de 2025

Arsenal star beats Barcelona rival to award after 'unbelievable' heroics

Gunners winger lit up Champions League win over Club Brugge to silence critics and earn huge praise from Mikel Arteta

Noni Madueke has won the Champions League Player of the Week award following his heroics for Arsenal.

The former Chelsea winger delivered a superb display for Mikel Arteta’s table-toppers in the league phase in Belgium on Wednesday night, scoring twice in a 3-0 victory over Club Brugge.

Vídeos OneFootball

Madueke was the star of the show at Jan Breydel Stadium, breaking the deadlock after 25 minutes as he embarked on a brilliant run off the right flank and smashed in a fantastic strike off the crossbar.

The England international was electric all night and doubled dominant Arsenal’s advantage shortly after the break, heading in Martin Zubimendi’s pinpoint cross from close range at the back post.

Gabriel Martinelli finished the scoring for the Gunners with a magnificent effort of his own less than 10 minutes later, with a comfortable victory maintaining Arsenal’s 100 per cent record in Europe so far this season as they remained three points ahead of closest rivals Bayern Munich and bounced back quickly from Saturday’s last-gasp Premier League loss at Aston Villa despite yet more injury problems.

Madueke deservedly won the Player of the Match award in Bruges but has now received an even more prestigious prize, named Champions League Player of the Week by UEFA.

He saw off competition for that particular honour from Barcelona’s Jules Kounde, Atalanta forward Charles De Ketelaere and Ajax winger Oscar Gloukh, who all played important roles in respective wins over Eintracht Frankfurt, Chelsea and Qarabag.

Madueke, Kounde and De Ketelaere also all made the Champions League Team of the Week for matchday six, as did Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon and Manchester City left-back Nico O’Reilly, who shone against Bayer Leverkusen and Real Madrid respectively.

Also in the team of the week was Marseille forward Mason Greenwood, Bayern Munich’s teenage sensation Lennart Karl, Benfica midfielder Richard Rios, Monaco defender Mohammed Salisu, Atletico Madrid’s David Hancko and Athletic Club goalkeeper Unai Simon.

Praising Madueke’s stunning first goal against Brugge, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said: “Unbelievable goal. When you talk about individual quality, individual action, a magic moment, that's it.

“A player that is able to pick the ball that far, dribble past people and finish with the quality and the power that he's done.

“The same as Martinelli as well, I think at this level you want to win games, you need individual players to step up and to do something different.

“So, I'm very happy because now we have some players back in the front line and you can tell how much better we have done. “