Arsenal Women´s UWCL clash with Lyon “the biggest challenge we´ve faced yet” By Michelle
Caitlin Foord believes Arsenal´s Champions League clash with Olympique Lyonnais tonight will be “the biggest challenge we’ve faced yet”.
Foord, however, is wary of underestimating our French opponents She told Arsenal.com: Their trophy cabinet shows what they’ve done over the years. Regardless of injuries, they have a very strong squad. It’s going to be a good challenge for us and I’m excited to play against them. Obviously, we have a team full of world-class players as well, so I think it’s going to be a really good match.
For us, it will be the biggest challenge we’ve faced yet, she continued. So if we can get a win and a good performance, it will be massive for us moving forward.
Facing Lyon in our first group game may prove to be a blessing in disguise. Every game in the Champions League is going to be tough Foord said.
Obviously, Lyon have won the Champions League before so they know what it’s all about. I think the earlier for us, the better. We want to continue our form throughout the league and that’s what we’ve been doing, so to have a challenge against Lyon and if it’s a good performance, that’s huge for us and we’ll keep building to where we want to go.
Arsenal Women reached the quarter-final stage of last year’s competition but lost to Bundesliga champions Wolfsburg across the two UWCL legs. Prior to the knockout rounds, Arsenal lost 8-1 to Barcelona on aggregate during the group stage and Foord admitted that the Arsenal side had a lot of learnings from those games..
We’ve looked a lot at those games heading into the next big games, and I think it purely comes down to us. I think we have to be up for the challenge and we have to be ready for these games. I think because of those previous games we’ve had, I think we’ve obviously seen that now and we don’t want that to happen again and improve on where we went wrong in those games. As I said, this game tomorrow will be a big challenge for us to see how far we’ve come.
Arsenal´s Aussie forward, who has played exceptionally up front this season for Arsenal, also scored three goals in Australia´s recent friendlies against Denmark and South Africa.
I just wanted to do whatever I can for the team and off the back of the Asian Cup, I was excited to be back with Arsenal,” she added. “I wanted to contribute in every way I could. I felt like I’ve started doing that and I want to keep doing that and keep pushing the team forward, as well as them obviously pushing me as well. Foord finished.
Well, it is certainly going to be a very tough game tonight in France.
Lyon have several players out with injuries but Arsenal Women are not without their own problems, with International Captains Leah Williamson and Rafaelle Souza both out of action for several weeks.
With Arsenal struggling to deliver a good performance against Reading on Sunday, and losing their place at the top of the Women´s Super League to Manchester United on goal difference (after only managing to defeat Reading 1-0) Eidevall must be trying to pump that morale button a little at the moment.
Michelle Maxwell
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