Against All Odds: Arsenal Women’s road to Lisbon has been far from smooth

Arsenal Women’s path to Lisbon has not been paved with gold. In fact, as we often see with teams that reach European finals, their path has been chaotic and jeopardy laden. If Barcelona are the swan making serene progress along the lake to yet another final, Arsenal have gainfully clung to the sides of the boat when the rapids have threatened to sweep them away.

The Gunners are the first team in UWCL history to go from the first qualifying round to the final, playing 14 games to arrive in Saturday’s final against Barcelona in Lisbon. Two managers have overseen the run and Arsenal have overturned three first leg deficits to progress- four if you count their head to head encounters against Bayern Munich in the group stage, which came to a match day six shootout for top spot in the group.

Last season, Arsenal were on the flipside of Champions League jeopardy, going out in the first qualifying round on penalties to Paris FC. In the Women’s Champions League, the qualifying rounds are a potent trapdoor. Wolfsburg, Juventus and Manchester United have all fallen foul of the preliminaries in recent seasons. When Lyon won the UWCL in 2023, beating Barca in the final, they needed extra time to win their playoff round fixture and ensure progression to the group stages.

Arsenal have surfed the full gamut of the Champions League ghost train in the last two seasons but they have earned their spot in Saturday’s final the hard way. Back in early September, a 6-0 first round win against Rangers at Boreham Wood has been their only truly effortless victory. They followed that up with a nervy 1-0 win over Rosenborg, who shocked Atletico Madrid by beating them on penalties in the previous round.

It proved to be a sign that Jonas Eidevall’s structured team was still toiling against low defensive blocks. That siren sounded again in the playoff round, when Hacken shut Arsenal out in Gothenburg and secured a 1-0 win first leg, before Arsenal emphatically turned the tie around at Meadow Park in the second leg. The group stages commenced just a fortnight later in Munich.

A 5-2 defeat to the German champions proved to be Eidevall’s penultimate game in charge and I had to ask him after the game whether the players were still on board with his message. He was unrepentant that they were but less than a week later, he resigned. Interim manager Renee Slegers restored some serenity to the club and a home game against Valarenga was probably just the tonic for her first game in charge.

Alessia Russo scored her first goal of the season that evening as Arsenal laboured to a steady, yet unconvincing 3-1 win. After the game, Slegers told Arseblog News, ‘we need to tidy up defending behind our defensive line.’ Three days later, she moved Steph Catley from left-back to centre-half where the Australian has been a fixture ever since. A pair of group games against Juventus looked as though they would decide who would finish runner up to Bayern Munich in the group.

In Italy, the Gunners fought hard against Juventus’ player for player pressing system and, in the second half, tore it apart in a very convincing display, winning 4-0. When the teams met again a week later, Juve switched up their approach, sitting in a deep block and frustrating Arsenal, until former Juve forward Lina Hurtig emerged from the bench to score a last minute winner against her former club. Hurtig’s spell at the club has been destroyed by injuries and she will leave after Saturday’s game, but she has made a very real contribution to Arsenal’s path to the final.

The goal proved to be significant, as did events elsewhere as Bayern conceded an unexpected late equaliser to Valarenga in Oslo. This was the evening when Arsenal’s UWCL fortunes turned on their head. A consummate victory in Oslo teed up a final day shootout for top spot in the group at home to Bayern Munich. The chaos of the game, played in a virtual storm, was underscored by administrative events that preceded it.

Arsenal were forced to move the tie from the Emirates back to Meadow Park since the men’s team had been drawn at home to Crystal Palace in the EFL Cup. Spurs being drawn at home during the same week and the UEFA requirement to have the stadium available the day before the match for the away team significantly complicated things and Arsenal had to endure a torrent of criticism for switching the game back to their more modest home ground.

The wind and rain swirled around Boreham Wood and the Gunners won a chaotic game 3-2, where four of the goals of the night came from wind assisted setpieces. In the dugout, Slegers showed a rare burst of emotion at the final whistle, leaping into the arms of assistant manager Aaron D’Antino. She sensed a crossroads in Arsenal’s European fortunes.

It meant that Arsenal avoided Chelsea and Barcelona en route to Lisbon. A quarter-final draw against Real Madrid saw them pitched as favourites. However, the first leg was played on a bog of a pitch in the torrential Madrid rain. Arsenal lost 2-0 in Spain and a disappointing exit seemed to be on the cards.

The tie produced a fascinating parallel to the men’s team, also drawn against Real Madrid in their Champions League quarter-final. But while Real Madrid’s men’s team spoke of a second leg remontada, it was the Arsenal Women who pulled the flip reverse, winning 3-0 in the second leg at Emirates Stadium with a torrent of three goals in 12 second half minutes, sending Madrid back to Spain with their tails between their legs.

A semi-final against eight time UWCL winners Lyon saw Arsenal come into the tie as slight underdogs. In the first 30 minutes of the home leg, the Gunners looked like a flyweight absorbing a whirlwind of blows from a heavyweight. Lyon led 1-0 but it could have been more. But slowly, Arsenal clawed their way back into the game, eventually equalising before Lyon immediately hit turbo charge and took a 2-1 lead back to France.

Few gave Arsenal a chance in the second leg, but Slegers and her team had learned their lessons from the first leg. This time it was Arsenal that flew out of the traps, scoring early, dominating the game and then pressing home that advantage when Mariona Caldentey sprinkled her stardust onto the occasion with a rasping 25 yard drive into the top corner.

Russo scored immediately after half time and Arsenal ended up sailing into the final. The Lyon tie was illustrative of their run to Lisbon, Arsenal rather stumbled into it, looked briefly as they would be blown away before course correcting, guided by the calming hand of Renee Slegers and progressing on merit.

Arsenal’s road to Lisbon has been a long, occasionally tumultuous and a little chaotic. But with the possible exception of Bayern slipping up against Valarenga in the group stage, it hasn’t been lucky. Barcelona have swept to another final because that is what they do, they are indisputably the best team in Europe by some distance. Arsenal have scrapped and fought their way to Lisbon.

14 games, one played in -8 temperatures, two played on plastic pitches, one played in a virtual hurricane, one played on a marsh. 14 games, four comebacks. Come Saturday, Arsenal will have earned their right to step onto the plinth next to Barcelona in the blazing Portuguese sunshine. They will go into the game as rank underdogs but their path in this competition so far shows they probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

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