An evening like no other. Olivier Giroud may have played more than 900 professional matches, but the Champions League meeting on Tuesday October 13 will have a very special flavor for him. "I was hoping in my corner, secretly, to come back here to play at the Emirates and I was very lucky. (...) It's great to come back here at 40, with a French club, and against Mikel Arteta [former teammate and current coach of the Gunners]", slipped Lille's Olivier Giroud, Monday October 12, at a press conference.
Because two weeks after celebrating his 40th birthday, the 2018 world champion will return, Tuesday, October 13, to the pitch at the Emirates Stadium, to face Arsenal, the club where he has set down the longest in his career, from July 2012 to December 2018. And with which the native of Chambéry maintains a close bond, even if it means publicly calling on his coach to play this meeting.
"If I'm going to put pressure on the coach to play? Yes! He keeps saying that we can both play (with Ayase Ueda), but in the last three matches, I sat on the bench. He must not believe that I'm going to be satisfied with that (laughs). But I'm so happy to go to the Emirates, it's great. Honestly, I dreamed of it", smiled the French striker in the columns of L'Equipe, the day of his 40 years. Because if he has written the most beautiful lines of his record elsewhere, notably at Chelsea (2018-2021) and AC Milan (2021-2024), it is with the Gunners jersey on his back that Olivier Giroud has changed dimension.
Often challenged, never defeated
In a wink of destiny, the European Cup brings Olivier Giroud back to the pitch of the club with which he discovered the Champions League. It was September 18, 2012, against Montpellier. At the time, already, the football gods had been teasing the Frenchman, who had joined Arsenal a few weeks earlier from the Hérault club. “We won Ligue 1 in Qatar's first year at PSG, who were already very strong. Our title was a bit unexpected, like Leicester in 2016. I finished top scorer, I was selected for the national team and I received a call from Arsène Wenger, who brought me back to London,” the Frenchman recalled in December 2025, on Sky Sports.
In a Canal+ documentary from 2024, Arsène Wenger gave his version of the facts: "I remember the first time I saw him. It was his first match for the French team. At the time he was doing well with Montpellier. When he came back, I saw him play, I said to myself: 'Damn, he understands football'. Immediately, there was something that hooked me." So much so that the Alsatian coach is wasting no time. In the middle of Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, he sent a contract to Olivier Giroud.
“I remember we were playing in Donetsk. My wife said to me: ‘Look, I have something for you in my handbag’. It was a contract with Arsenal. It was one of the happiest days of my life,” the Frenchman, who arrived in London a few weeks later, told Sky Sports in 2025. "I was very lucky because from the second championship match with Arsenal, the supporters made me a song to 'Hey Jude' by the Beatles at Anfield. That's when I understood that the English public loved football. They knew how to welcome the players even though I hadn't even scored for the club yet. You just want to give back to them on the pitch", recalled in March the one who "left a lot of friends" in England.
“It’s always special to come back to England, to a country that lives, eats and sleeps football. It’s very exciting.”
Olivier Giroud
at a press conference
"When I arrived at Arsenal, Arsène gave me time to adapt, he gave me confidence. It wasn't easy because Robin van Persie had just left. I needed time, confidence, Arsène gave it to me", recalled Olivier Giroud last May, on the road to the Champions League final between PSG and Arsenal, for which he supported his former club tooth and nail.
Because if the story took time to start, it was beautiful for Olivier Giroud, despite the pitfalls. Often put in competition (Théo Walcott, Alexis Sanchez, Alexandre Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang...), the Savoyard, true to his temperament, has always turned the tables. “He had a completely different profile from those to which we were accustomed. And what a career he had! He fully deserved it,” added Mikel Arteta on Monday, four years his teammate at the Gunners of which he is the current coach.
Giroud has already shone against Arsenal
With 105 goals in 253 games with the Gunners, without forgetting his 41 assists, but also a nickname "Mister Derby" for his propensity to score against the various London rivals, without forgetting his three English Cup crowns, it is an understatement to say that Olivier Giroud has left his mark on the history of Arsenal. And this even if he has never won the Premier League, or made it past the round of 16 in the Champions League. With 19.6 goals and 8.2 assists on average over his first five full seasons (he left the club in January 2018, during the sixth), it was at Arsenal that the Frenchman had his best performance.
"He was extremely intelligent, first of all, and really difficult to contain. He was a huge threat in the penalty area. He was very clever, he was also excellent at combining with other players. His work volume was phenomenal."
Mikel Arteta, Arsenal manager and former player
at a press conference, October 12
Author of several memorable achievements, Olivier Giroud also marked the history of the Emirates Stadium by scoring, on January 1, 2015, the best goal of the calendar year: a scorpion shot against Crystal Palace, rewarded a few months later by the Puskas prize for the best goal of the year. He will not need to do as much on Tuesday to make the people of Lille happy. Beaten at home by Real Bétis at the opening of this Champions League, Losc dreams of an exploit on the lawn of the reigning European vice-champions to launch its European campaign.
This will require a gala Olivier Giroud, author of a decent start to the season (one goal, two assists in five matches), and who has already shone against his ex, with one goal and three assists in five matches against Arsenal. Without forgetting the victory in the 2019 Europa League final, during which Olivier Giroud opened the scoring for Chelsea, who outclassed Arsenal (4-1). The Mastiffs hope for the same on Tuesday to overthrow the Gunners, winners in Naples (1-0) when they enter the Champions League at the beginning of September.
