{"id":326619,"date":"2026-04-30T01:56:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=326619"},"modified":"2026-04-30T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:26:40","slug":"arsenal-unhappy-with-grass-on-atletico-madrid-pitch-before-champions-league-match-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/30\/arsenal-unhappy-with-grass-on-atletico-madrid-pitch-before-champions-league-match-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal unhappy with grass on Atletico Madrid pitch before Champions League match | Football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t\t<\/div><figcaption>Arsenal\u2019s ground staff were checking the peak of the grass on the Metropolitano Stadium (CBS Sports)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Arsenal raised concerns over the length of the grass on the Metropolitano Stadium hours before their Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>With an hour to go before kick-off, CBS Sports showed footage of Arsenal\u2019sground staff inspecting the pitch with a tool which measures the peak of the surface.<\/p>\n<p>UEFA\u2019s rules state that the peak of the grass must not exceed 30mm\u00a0and the complete playing surface have to be cut to the identical level.<\/p>\n<p>CBS Sports reporter Guillem Balague revealed that Arsenal asked UEFA to perform an inspection, which confirmed that the pitch has been cut to 26mm.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I want to inform you in regards to the grass war that took place nearly an hour ago,\u2019 Balague said.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Arsenal\u2019s ground staff got here in considering the grass is just too high, \u2018we\u2019re not completely satisfied with it\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018They asked UEFA to really measure it. They thought it was [Diego] Simeone creating some dark arts.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018After some time, UEFA said \u2018no, it\u2019s actually 26mm\u2019. The limit is 30mm. It\u2019s 21-30mm. By the way in which, it was the identical as once they played Barcelona here.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, Barcelona had also complained in regards to the length of the grass Metropolitano Stadium ahead of their Champions League quarter-final tie against Atletico.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona\u2019s head coach, Hansi Flick, was seen discussing the pitch UEFA\u2019s match delegate throughout the team\u2019s final training session.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, Atletico had not breached UEFA\u2019s ruled because the pitch was cut to 26mm.<\/p>\n<p>Managers raise concerns over the peak of the grass as an extended playing surface slows down the speed of the ball, making it harder for teams with a fast-passing kind of play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><strong>For more stories like this,\u00a0check our sport page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Follow Metro Sport for the most recent news on <meta charset=\"utf-8\"><br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sportmetro\">Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Metro_Sport\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/metrosportuk\/\">Instagram<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"><\/use><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: Atletico Madrid vs Arsenal LIVE: Champions League latest rating and goal updates as Alvarez levels<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"><\/use><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: Atletico confirm triple injury blow hours before Arsenal clash<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"><\/use><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: Ray Parlour makes Arsenal claim after PSG and Bayern Munich nine-goal thriller<\/span><\/p>\n<section id=\"share-buttons-bottom\" class=\"share-buttons share-buttons-bottom\"><a class=\"metro-button share-bar-comments\" data-vars-position=\"bottom\" href=\"#metro-comments-container\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span><svg><title>Comment now<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#social-comment\" href=\"#social-comment\"><\/use><\/svg><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"share-bar-comments__label\">Comments<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span><svg><title>Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#social-preferred-source\" href=\"#social-preferred-source\"><\/use><\/svg><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"share-bar-preferred-source__label\">Add as preferred source<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/section>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal\u2019s ground staff were checking the peak of the grass on the Metropolitano Stadium (CBS Sports) Arsenal raised concerns over the length of the grass on the Metropolitano Stadium hours before their Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid. With an hour to go before kick-off, CBS Sports showed footage of Arsenal\u2019sground staff inspecting the pitch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":326620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20686],"tags":[2605,15249,5941,5479,36730,622,3166,2064,1334,21221],"class_list":["post-326619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-arsenal","tag-atletico","tag-champions","tag-football","tag-grass","tag-league","tag-madrid","tag-match","tag-pitch","tag-unhappy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326622,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326619\/revisions\/326622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}