Arsenal passed their Bayern Munich exam — and can still get better New York Times (Online) Art de Roché Mikel Arteta was under no illusions after Arsenal's 2-2 Champions League draw away to Bayern Munich . “That's a different game than we normally play, especially in the Premier League,” he said, reflecting on a testing, entertaining and informative European occasion. Arsenal's recent history in the Champions League has been unusually linear. They reached the quarter-finals in the 2023-24 season, the semi-finals the following year and the final a year after that. In a far cry from their European campaigns of old, Arteta's side had won all but two of the 18 league-phase games they had played before this trip to Bavaria. So yes, even with Bayern missing Michael Olise, Jamal Musiala and Joshua Kimmich, this was a very different game to normal. It was clear from kick-off that there was no inferiority complex inhibiting Arsenal, as they kept the ball rather than pump it long in hope of working a better position. They had come to play. And while Bayern were outstanding in their response, Arsenal's refusal to back down — exhibited most powerfully by Declan Rice's surging run to equalise late on — was a telling sign of where they are mentally. Initially, the inroads made by Jurrien Timber and Bukayo Saka (expertly picked out by David Raya) were promising for Arsenal, before Saka was forced off with a left quad injury . Even at that early stage, though, Bayern were threatening to show why they are still among Europe's elite without three of their key players. The combination of a game-breaking forward in Harry Kane and a lightning quick wide man in Alphonso Davies kept Arsenal battling. Whenever Kane dropped deep, he was followed by Ezri Konsa, but that started a chain reaction that was hard to contain. Arsenal's backline would stretch, Bayern would play quick and direct to Davies, and the Canada captain would pelt towards the Arsenal penalty area. His equaliser to cancel out Eberechi Eze's opener was the third such example. “Harry Kane can put the ball 30 metres from the floor between us, in a space that doesn't exist,” Arteta said afterwards. “That's the level.” It was a sublime pass on a night littered with beautiful goals. Arsenal's first was further evidence they have the technical ability to be comfortable when meeting Europe's big boys. They were criticised for recording the lowest share of possession in a Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain in May (24.7 per cent) but, when necessary at the Allianz, their technical leaders took charge. Moments before setting up Eze's goal, Martin Odegaard had started dropping deep as part of a rotating midfield involving Rice and Bruno Guimaraes. Arsenal's captain seemed to want a greater feel for the ball as he probed and feinted this way and that. His pass to Eze and the latter's patience to allow the ball to bounce three times before finishing on his left foot was a timely reminder of the level players operate at in heavyweight clashes such as this. Part of Arsenal's growth as a European force has been their improvement away from home, which has flowed from the squad gaining more Champions League experience. Even without Olise, Kimmich and Musiala, Bayern's squad is steeped in continental experience, which showed in how they went through the gears in the second half. Soon they had centre-backs driving through the middle of the pitch, taking the game to Arsenal. The pressure paid off in the shape of a customary Kane penalty but, as Arteta observed, for Arsenal to stay in touching distance and equalise after that “says a lot about the team. I know the opponent that we have played, the players and the coach. That's why I think I have to give my big credit to our team”. Arteta's Arsenal beat Vincent Kompany's Bayern last season at the Emirates, but a match at the Allianz is an entirely different context. Arsenal have not won there in five matches, and that victory in March 2013 (2-0 on the night in the round-of-16 second leg but a 3-3 draw on aggregate) was hollow as Arsenal were knocked out on away goals . To emerge unscathed from the Allianz is a step forward even from three seasons ago, when Arsenal lost 1-0 in a Champions League quarter-final second leg. But while the game was a marker of how far they have come, it also gave indications of the strides that still need to be made. When Bayern or PSG need to turn the tide in a game, they have the forwards to do it in Kane and Ousmane Dembele, accompanied by the soaring pace or skill of Davies, Achraf Hakimi, Olise, Desire Doue, Luis Diaz or Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. That abundance of quality made for one of the most entertaining Champions League semi-finals in recent memory last season, when PSG beat Bayern 5-4 in the first leg en route to the final. Earlier this season, Arteta called that tie “something that we probably haven't witnessed before”. That speaks to the challenge he faces in making Arsenal not just competitive against Europe's elite, but capable of dethroning them. Their squad is stacked with talented players but sometimes a little more is needed. Emphasis on that will only heighten with Saka joining Christos Tzolis on the injury list, but for now Arteta could take solace in the “character, the personality, but also the quality that we showed”. “There were moments (Bayern) changed, especially the way they were pressing in two different ways,” the Spaniard continued. “We were very aware of that. And the way the team had to understand the game was really good. “You could see that right from the beginning: the mindset, the purpose and the intention (of) the team was to be very dominant. To come here and cause problems to Bayern, to press them and to attack them. That's certainly what we've done.”