THE LOWDOWN
Arsenal will play Rosenborg on Saturday evening at 7.30pm for the chance to qualify for the UWCL playoff round, a two legged home and away tie the winner of which would qualify for the group stages. I put together an explainer for the qualifying stages, how they work and why they work as they do and you can read that here.
Arsenal will be favourites against Rosenborg, especially at home, but this stage of the UWCL qualifiers is fraught with jeopardy. Arsenal themselves learned this when they lost on penalties to Paris FC at this stage last season. While Rosenborg themselves upset the odds in the other semi-final on Wednesday, beating Atletico Madrid on penalties to tee up this tie with Arsenal.
New! Caitlin Fourd reacts to 6-0 victory over Glasgow Rangers https://t.co/7e5JE8yk3s #afc #arsenal pic.twitter.com/iV7JpUVGNT
— arseblognews (@arseblognews) September 4, 2024
The Gunners made short work of Glasgow Rangers on Wednesday night, according to the expected outcome with a 6-0 victory, in which Caitlin Foord helped herself to four goals. Arsenal have some advantages in terms of preparation that they did not have last season. For a start, they are hosting this mini tournament and are playing at home.
Secondly, last summer Arsenal had three full days of pre-season training off the back of the World Cup to prepare for tricky qualifying ties in Sweden. That said, the full squad has only had a fortnight together this time around, with six players competing at the Olympic Games. Arsenal know they cannot afford to fall at this hurdle for the second consecutive season.
TEAM NEWS
Beth Mead is back in the squad after missing the final pre-season friendlies against Chelsea and Southampton and Wednesday’s game against Rangers with a tight groin. Steph Catley again misses out due to a muscle injury. Lina Hurtig is still unavailable and will target the beginning of the WSL season to be back to full fitness. Victoria Pelova (ACL) is out.
Squad
Goalkeepers: 1.Zinsberger 14.van Domselaar 40.Williams
Defenders: 2.Fox 3.Wubben-Moy 5.L.Codina 6.Williamson 11.McCabe 26.Wienroither 62.Reid
Midfielders: 10.Little 12.Maanum 13.Walti 16.Kafaji 22.Kuhl 32.Cooney-Cross
Forwards: 8.Mariona 9.Mead 19.Foord 23.Russo 25.Blackstenius 53.Lia 56.Godfrey 59.Agyemang
A WORD FROM THE BOSS
‘This is why football is the greatest game on earth, it is not as simple that you have to play against one situation as a team. There are hundreds of situations that you need to have an idea of how to play against it. Then you need to ensure that idea has a collective understanding and that it brings the best out of the players and you get the technical aspects from them.
‘That is why football is such a demanding game. That is the reason we train all the time and see the team more than we see our families, because we are obsessed with the game and we try to get a real understanding and grip of this dynamic and challenging game and tomorrow will be another example of that. But that is the life long quest, to try to control football.
‘Football has gone far away from where it was a couple of decades ago where teams would do the same thing and play the same formation and if things don’t work, maybe they do something else for the last 15 minutes. Now it is much more common that a team changes three or four times during the first half, how they build up, how they press and what they prioritise so you always need to stay alert.’
LAST TIME OUT
These two teams have yet to meet competitively.
THE OPPOSITION
Rosenborg are currently 19 games into their domestic season so they will be physically well tuned for this match, as they demonstrated against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday. They nicked a 91st minute equaliser before going ahead in the first half of extra time and that physical advantage over Atleti was certainly a factor in their shock win.
Siste trening før @ArsenalWFC 👌 pic.twitter.com/sDfL7hozCa
— Rosenborg Ballklub Kvinner (@RBKvinner) September 6, 2024
Coached by Englishman Robin Shroot, Rosenborg finished second in the Toppserien in 2023, one point off the top of the table. They have experienced a stumble in their domestic results recently which puts them third in the league currently. The Norwegian side had a plan against Atleti that involved staying in the game and trying to nick something from a setpiece late on.
That is exactly how things transpired, a stoppage time setpiece equalised before an extra-time setpiece gave them the lead. They did visibly tire towards the end as Atleti piled the pressure on. Rosenborg will know they are underdogs, they will play underdog football and Wednesday shows they have form for it.
PLAYER TO WATCH
Caitlin Foord played predominantly on the right against Rangers on Wednesday night with Beth Mead unavailable and Mariona playing that ‘wide 10’ role on the left. It signalled a slight change in intention with Foord’s role. Last season, Caitlin was asked to hold the width for the Gunners attack and isolate and attack the full-back from wide positions.
In my view, it put a heavy burden on her in build-up, as she was often asked to beat two to three defenders. With Mariona taking up a lot of the playmaking and drifting into central spaces, Foord played as more of a finisher on the back post, with play building on the left and finishing on the right.
As a former centre-forward, Foord is a strong finisher but wasn’t put in positions to demonstrate it often enough last season. Mariona’s arrival puts pressure on Foord’s space as a lack of options on the left has led to an over reliance on the Australian. But Mariona’s arrival presents opportunity for Foord too to be a finisher and benefit from the strong build-up work of others.
PREDICTED LINE-UP
Subs: 3.Wubben-Moy 9.Mead 13.Walti 14.van Domselaar 16.Kafaji 22.Kuhl 25.Blackstenius 26.Wienroither 40.Williams 59.Agyemang 62.Reid
HOW TO CATCH THE GAME
The match will be streamed live and free on Arsenal.com. It kicks off at 7.30pm at Meadow Park.
COMING UP
We will have our usual on the whistle match report with goal clips from Aidan Gibson straight after full-time. We will have post-match reaction from Jonas Eidevall on the site shortly after full-time and ask our two allotted questions of him as always. Then Jamie Spangher and I will have an Arsenal Women Arsecast for you early next week looking back over this week. Jamie is in Australia at the moment so it might end up being out on Tuesday for timezone reasons!
Why isn’t this game at the Emirates? I’m sure it would get a pretty big crowd if it was. It’s a big game, Champion’s league qualifier. And there is no men’s game this weekend due to international break. It makes no sense
This isn’t technically an Arsenal home match. It’s part of a mini tournament that has to be played at a single venue. It’s been at various places in the past, but this year it’s at Borehamwood. (See Tim’s piece on UWCL structure).
Because the same stadium has to host all four games, the one earlier in the day would be lucky to get more than 200 people, because of the short turnaround this game only sold out this evening.
Really looking forward to this, so glad it’s being streamed for free by the club. Hopefully Rosenborgs extra time exertions in midweek will help balance the fitness levels between us a bit.
COYG!
Bad news is Gilly Flaherty’s commentating and if anybody can put the dampers on a Good match its her constant winging on what the teams are not doing right.
I like her. You have to mix it up a bit with the commentators. My only gripe with her is that she always seems to jinx us!
This game should be tough, the team there will not give up the result easily, I expect a very competitive game, they are the underdogs, but not against Arsenal W, it will be a great game, and I will be rooting for you. I know that the girls of the Arsenal will fight bravely to get through to the next stage.
Such a good illustration of how Mariona is helping our attacking play. Maanum is also seeing the benefit, Russo will, too. With MC we suddenly have more tactical options, and other players look better and can show off their strengths. We are so up for this tournament, you can feel it. The match against Rosenborg will be a very different sort of game and probably far less enjoyable to watch, but I hope our set piece coaching pays off like it did Vs Southampton – there will be plenty of corners and free kicks, I am sure. And we’ll have… Read more »
I see lots of team changes even in the fist half to get the best out of a wide range of players and talents.
Anyone has an idea why Lia is not starting?
She’s just recovered from injury but was fit enough to come on fairly late on Wednesday so she’s probably getting close
How do you know she is not starting? The graphic above is Tim’s predicted 11 and he’ll be the first to admit he gets it wrong sometimes!
12 subs can be named in this competition