If there has been a better performance by a visiting team at the San Siro, it must have been some match. If there has been a better individual display than that by Cesc Fàbregas, it must have been the work of some player. This was the night when youth and beauty beat age, guile and experience, and it was a joy to watch.

Even the locals stood to acknowledge Arsenal before the end. Spontaneous bursts of applause greeting another round of fleet-footed passing, as Arsène Wenger’s young team steered the match gently to its resting place, safely beyond AC Milan’s reach. They picked the right time to score, too, after 84 minutes, when Milan then required two goals in six minutes to progress, and rounded it off with a second in the final seconds to post a scoreline that properly reflected their supremacy on the night.

This was the Arsenal we have been waiting for, and the masterclass from Fàbregas, too. Recent blips in domestic matches have coincided with a downturn in form from the player who had defined Arsenal’s start to the season. In that time his ability to sustain influence on the campaign had been called into question, as had his preparedness for the long haul and his appetite for the fight. And this was always going to be a fight.

Delightfully, Fàbregas was up for it and entered the fray with fire in his belly and a score to settle. More than that, he arrived with the quickest mind, the sharpest intellect and the most mesmerising array of skills on the pitch. But most significantly, he returned with a hunger that took him beyond all competitors — even Kaká, the World Footballer of the Year — and scored a goal fit to win any match.

It came quite simply, but with stunning effect, the blueprint of Arsenal’s success on the night. Alexander Hleb, another star on an occasion when Arsenal’s midfield positively sparkled, fed the ball into Fàbregas in the heart of the Milan half. As Andrea Pirlo and Massimo Ambrosini backed off, the Spaniard sensed his chance. His shot dipped and bucked just in front of Zeljko Kalac, the Milan goalkeeper, and nestled in the corner of the net. With no way back, the home team’s fans sat stunned.

At that moment, Arsenal had succeeded in knocking out the champions of Europe on their home patch, territory on which no English team had won. Having dominated for much of the match, created the best chances and played the finest football, the locals could only stand back in admiration. As they politely clapped the team from England, Arsenal provided a bitter-sweet thank you, a second goal, scored in injury time, the first European goal in Arsenal colours for Emmanuel Adebayor, the striker.

Fàbregas was the architect here, too, his raking pass finding Theo Walcott, a substitute, on the right, his pace outstripping Kakha Kaladze, the full back, almost to the point of awkwardness. For once, Walcott’s cross was spot-on, too, and Adebayor arrived at the far post for a simple conversion.

Even though these teams ploughed deep into a third hour of football without a goal between them over the two legs, no one could fault the quality of the match. It was for the best part thrilling and open and different from the cat-and-mouse nature of the first leg. Arsenal were largely to thank for that.

While Milan played safety first at the Emirates Stadium two weeks ago, Arsenal were expansive and high-risk last night, getting at their opponents with superb, passing football that banished the memory of Manchester United’s failure to launch when playing here and losing heavily in the semi-final of this tournament 11 months ago.

On that night, United were undone by the brilliance of Kaká and their star performer, Cristiano Ronaldo, was all but anonymous. This match could not have enjoyed greater differences. Mediocre in recent weeks, Fàbregas, Arsenal’s key player, was inspired by the surroundings and set about Milan with the craft of a master puppeteer, pulling strings all over the pitch, each move given life by his sense of invention. Like Hleb, his mind seemed to be working at greater speed than his opponents and the pair stretched a massed defence to its limit, with darting runs and pass after incisive pass.

The one villain of the piece was Konrad Plautz, the Austrian referee, who wrongly booked Hleb for diving in the 33rd minute, when he was brought down by Alessandro Nesta, the Milan central defender. Replays showed that Nesta had committed a foul, on the line of the penalty area, too. A spot-kick may have been a controversial decision with 81,000 packed into the Giuseppe Meazza — to give the San Siro its rightful name — but Hleb’s booking was a travesty. It came at the height of Arsenal’s first-half pressure on the Milan goal, yet it did not knock them out of their stride.

A minute later, Adebayor slipped a ball to Fàbregas from the left flank and he struck the bar with his shot from 20 yards. By this time members of the Milanese crowd were becoming strangely subdued. They are used to dominating here and to seeing English teams taking an ugly, direct route to goal. To be outplayed by one on a purely technical level will have come as a shock, although the sweetness of Fàbregas’s delivery owes little to his adopted home.

Everything he did had class. His corners were dangerous and should have made an unlikely hero of Philippe Senderos in the 47th minute, his long passes turned route one into a delightful country lane, not least when he picked out Adebayor in the twelfth minute, setting up a shooting opportunity for Abou Diaby.

Milan’s chances were rare and the closest they came was through a corner by Pirlo in the seventh minute that was headed goalwards by Paolo Maldini and cleared from the line, by Fàbregas, of course. If Milan had got a penalty, he would probably have gone in goal and saved that, too.

AC Milan (4-3-1-2): Z Kalac – M Oddo, A Nesta, K Kaladze, P Maldini – G Gattuso, A Pirlo, M Ambrosini - Kaká – F Inzaghi (sub: A Gilardino, 68min), Pato. Substitutes not used: V Fiori, Emerson, D Simic, G Favalli, Y Gourcuff, D Bonera. Booked: Inzaghi, Kaká, Pirlo.

Arsenal (4-4-1-1): M Almunia – B Sagna, W Gallas, P Senderos, G Clichy – E Eboué (sub: T Walcott, 70), M Flamini, F Fàbregas, A Diaby – A Hleb (sub: Gilberto Silva, 89) – E Adebayor. Substitutes not used: J Lehmann, R van Persie, Denilson, N Bendtner, J Hoyte. Booked: Hleb, Eboué, Clichy.

Referee: K Plautz (Austria).

At home in Europe

Great Arsenal away wins in Europe

Juventus 0 Arsenal 1

Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final, second leg, April 23, 1980

With two minutes left, Paul Vaessen converts a Graham Rix cross.

Inter Milan 1 Arsenal 5

European Cup group match, November 25, 2003

Three goals in last six minutes help see off an Inter side that won first leg 3-0

Real Madrid 0, Arsenal 1

European Cup second round, first leg, February 21, 2006

Thierry Henry holds off challenges to score two minutes into the second half