Arsenal women after 18 years of winners Champions League

For eighty minutes, coach Renée Slegers (36) is sitting on the couch as the peace. She sees how the Arsenal women have a hard time at phases against FC Barcelona, ​​the big favorite in the Champions League final in Lisbon. Like in the 49th minute, as goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar has no chance after a swipe from Clàudia Pina, but sees the ball ploping on the bar to her relief.

There is also a short phase, in the first half, in which her team is the better. Arsenal exerts pressure, and Barcelona is released with a fright when the own goal of defender Irene Paredes is rejected due to offside. This is how Slegers likes to see her team play: with conviction and willpower. The individual qualities of players are then seamlessly coordinated.

During the game wavy match, Slegers apparently sits calmly on the couch, with her index finger against her chin, but in the last fifteen minutes she becomes restless. Her golden change, Stina Blackstenius, has just scored, after a turned corner. A bit against the relationships capable of Arsenal for the lead. Would it still work?

Restart

Only once Arsenal (as the only English team) has won the Champions League. But that was in 2007, even before women’s football took such a big flight. Before Barcelona and Olympique Lyonnais distributed the loot. Because it has always been that way in recent years. Olympique won between 2016 and 2020. Then Barcelona, ​​then Olympique again. And in 2023 and 2024 again Barcelona.

But Slegers had shown in recent months that they cannot be underestimated. Unexpectedly, she had created a restart, after the departure of the Swedish coach Jonas Eidevall, in October last year. She would actually take over it temporarily (since 2023 she was an assistant), but it went so well that she was definitively appointed as head coach in January.

She has something from Arne Slot, the success coach of the Liverpool men’s team, said football analyst Leonne Stentler this Saturday in NRC. Slegers knows how to convey her ideas to the group well, Stentler said. « It’s not just about what you see or think of, but especially how you transfer it credibly. The players must and want to follow you. »

That that approach works was shown in Lisbon. Because Slegers radiated peace, her team managed to keep a cool head, it seemed. As in the semi-final against Olympique Lyonnais also happened, when Arsenal won 4-1, after it had lost 1-2 at home.

Momentum

In Lisbon, it is occasionally squeezing buttocks during the seven minutes, but while the time taps, the smile breaks through the players of Arsenal by the side. When the last whistle has sounded, Slegers watches from a distance how her players fall into each other emotionally. Then she pulls a sprint over the field with striker Alessia Russo.

« Great, » Russo rejoices through the tears against TNT Sports. « We knew that we should suffer in this competition, and that there would be times when we would not have the ball, and we had to be satisfied and happy without the ball, knowing that our moment would come. But our selection wanted it too much. »

Slegers doesn’t think so. « We know how good they are on the ball, but we also know how good we are, » she says with Schorre Stem. « We knew that the momentum would run. Maybe others thought differently, but that was what we believed. The mentality we showed, the resilience, the faith … It was incredible. »

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