Arsenal Women Stun Barcelona To End Their Reign As European Champions

Arsenal Women won their second Champions League title to end the reign of FC Barcelona, the winners of the competition in the previous two seasons.

A single goal from substitute Stina Blackstenius won the match, a result that had looked unlikely for most of the second half. Arsenal, who were the only previous English winners of the competition in 2007 in its previous guise of the UEFA Women’s Cup, thus also became the first English team to win the modern UEFA Women’s Champions League.

Barcelona started with Claudia Pina, the top goalscorer in the Champions League this season with ten goals and suffered a major scare midway through the first half when their defender Irene Paredes turned a low Frida Maanum cross into her own net. After encouragement from the Barcelona players, the goal was reviewed by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), who adjudged that Maanum had strayed marginally offside before receiving the ball. The goal was disallowed.

Arsenal were playing in a record 15th match in the competition this season having entered the competition at the First Qualifying Round and becoming the first third-placed placed team to reach the final of the subsequent UEFA Women’s Champions League.

For much of the first half, against the Spanish champions – who only had to play 10 games to make the final – Arsenal held their own. They defended resolutely and bravely, throwing themselves into challenges and offering a threat on the counter-attack.

The holders stepped up the pace in the second half, pinning Arsenal back for long periods, leaving their forwards isolated. Pina had a shot deflected onto the crossbar before defender Ona Batlle slashed a shot from outside the area narrowly wide of Daphne van Domselaar’s goal.

Arsenal brought on Beth Mead and Stina Blackstenius midway through the second half and within minutes they offered more of a threat in attack. Blackstenius raced away to force a save from Barcelona goalkeeper Cata Coll. Minutes later, after Barcelona failed to clear a corner, Mead released Blackstenius with a clever reverse pass and the Swede steered the ball into the bottom corner of the goal.

It was to prove the only goal of the match as Arsenal continued to defend heroically in the face of constant pressure from Barcelona who could not find a way through. On the day she joined 2007 champion Emma Byrne as the club’s leading appearance maker in the competition, Arsenal captain Kim Little finally won the Champions League 19 years after she first appeared in European club football for Hibernian.

Victory was the ultimate vindication in Arsenal’s appointment of head coach Renée Slegers. The Dutchwoman was initially given the job on a temporary basis after the sacking of Jonas Eidevall in the wake of a humiliating 5-2 defeat to FC Bayern in the club’s first group stage match in the Champions League. A run of impressive results led to her earning a permanent contract in January.

Slegers has become only the fourth female coach to lead a team to victory in the UEFA Women’s Champions League and at 36 years of age, one of the youngest. She follows Monika Staab, a winner with Frankfurt in 2002, Martina Voss, who was coach of Duisburg in 2009 and Sonia Bompastor, a champion with Olympique Lyonnais in 2022.

Barcelona were playing in their 100th game in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, only the fourth team after Olympique Lyonnais, Arsenal and Wolfsburg to reach that figure. Coincidentally, the first of those was also against Arsenal in 2012, a crushing 0-3 defeat at the club’s Mini-Estadi in front of just 1,354 fans.

Today, the game at Lisbon’s Estádio José Alvalvade was seen by thirty times as many spectators in attendance and millions more live streaming the game around on DAZN. Having signed the first exclusive deal to broadcast the tournament in 2021, it will be the last game DAZN will show live in the competition. Yesterday the European governing body UEFA, announced that they had signed a new four-year contract with Disney Plus for the television rights to stream the tournament within Europe.