The Singapore Festival of Football is taking place this week and the first of the two matches took place last night between Arsenal FC and AC Milan.

This is a pre-season football tournament which is generally used as an opportunity by these European clubs to engage with their fans overseas and to bring live football to those who normally can’t travel to Europe to see their favourite teams in action. 

The match was played out to a crowd of 22,813 spectators at the Singapore National Stadium and saw Arsenal beat AC Milan 1-0 to win the Tridentity Cup. Buyako Saka scored the only goal of the game in the 53rd minute to break the deadlock. Arsenal did later have opportunities to add on a second and AC Milan could also have equalised, but it was not to be.

Following the match, there was a friendly penalty shootout between the two teams to give them some practice for cup competitions in the new season. The penalty score was tied at 2-2 after five shots each and the shootout went into sudden death. AC Milan won 6-5 after a total of 10 penalties were taken per side. The decisive penalty was missed by Arsenal’s Marli Salmon and AC milan fully capitalised on his miss to take the shootout win.

Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta is pleased with Arsenal’s showing in Singapore.

He said, “It’s good, winning and a clean sheet as well, overall a very good performance, a consistent performance throughout the game. We had a lot of changes and have seen the players performing at a very high level.”

On Saka, who was named as Man of the Match, he said, “A lot of the players showed that they are ready and at a really good level. Buyako is one of them. We have pushed him through the summer to catch up on a lot of things that he had to give himself the best chance to exploit his qualities better.” 

Arteta is also happy that Arsenal’s new signings have gelled well together with the rest of the team. He said, “I think they adapted really quickly, really fast. As you can tell, they were very loose, very relaxed and confident in everything they did, and again, a very positive performance.” 

Arsenal will be holding an open training session with football fans in attendance tomorrow at the Singapore National Stadium and then the Gunners will face Newcastle United on Sunday in their final match in Singapore.

Arteta was pleased to see the fans in Singapore again. The last time Arsenal were in Singapore was in 2018. He said, “It was very special, we’ve been here before, we know how special this place is with our club. Hopefully there will be more crowd next game though.”

Tickets are still available for Sunday’s Arsenal v Newcastle match at Ticketek. Fans who wish to attend can purchase at https://premier.ticketek.com.sg/shows/Show.aspx?sh=AVN6074.