The last time Arsenal won the Women’s Champions League, the team’s star Leah Williamson was a 10-year-old mascot, clutching a ball as she accompanied the players onto the pitch.
On Saturday, 18 years later, Williamson’s defensive brilliance helped the Gunners to their next European triumph as they stunned two-time defending champion and pre-game favorite Barcelona 1-0 in the final.
This was an all-conquering Barça team, one which was playing in a record-equaling fifth consecutive final, had once again dominated Spain’s Liga F and had scored 44 goals in the Champions League this season, just one shy of the all-time record. Few expected Arsenal to dethrone such a team.
“We knew that we were the underdogs and it’s rare that you get to play in a game when there’s so little pressure on you,” Williamson said afterward, per the club’s website. “So we just went out and we said we were going to enjoy it.”
Armed with such an attitude and unencumbered by expectation, Arsenal produced one of its great performances, Stina Blackstenius’ goal in the 74th minute proving the difference between the two teams.
Blackstenius had been on the pitch for less than 10 minutes when she made her decisive contribution, collecting Beth Mead’s reverse pass through Barça’s defense inside the box, controlling it with one touch and firing it across the face of the goal into the net.
That came shortly after she had engineered another chance, pouncing on a loose pass and taking on the defense only for her shot to be blocked by goalkeeper Cata Coll.
And, in front of thousands of Gunners fans who had traveled to Lisbon, Arsenal’s defense dug in and clung on, even when seven minutes of injury time were added.
“It’s probably the hardest game we’ve played so far,” Arsenal manager Renée Slegers told reporters afterward. “With all the quality Barcelona has, with all their rotations and all their individual threat, there was so much to deal with today and the players had to make decisions every single second on the pitch.”
Barcelona had chances of its own – the Spanish team took 14 shots in the second half alone – but each effort bounced off the woodwork, narrowly missed the goal or was batted away by Daphne van Domselaar.
The Spanish giant was much improved in the second half after looking off-color before halftime, lacking the precision of a team seeking a fourth European title in five years.
That was epitomized in the 22nd minute when the Arsenal players thought they had gone 1-0 up after Irene Paredes inadvertently tapped the ball into the net as she tried to clear it away before the goal was ruled out following a VAR check for offside.
“We weren’t at our best level, but we gave all we had. In situations like that, football sometimes punishes you,” Aitana Bonmatí, last year’s Ballon d’Or winner, said, per AP. “We need to push onwards and use what’s happened here to our benefit in the future.”
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