Juventus Women v Arsenal Preview

THE LOWDOWN
Arsenal play away at Juventus in their third Champions League group game on Tuesday evening. It feels like a pivotal tie for the group given that both teams have, so far, beaten Valerenga and lost to Bayern Munich. Arsenal and Juve will play a double header over the next nine days and it is quite likely that Bayern will pick up six points against Valerenga in that time.

The Gunners opened the group stage with a disappointing 5-2 loss in Munich but got back on track with a 4-1 win over the Norwegian side on match day two at the Emirates. A pair of games against Juve followed by a home game against Bayern feels like the trifecta of matches where Arsenal’s fate in the group will truly be decided.

Arsenal got not have asked for a better preparation with a comfortable 5-0 win over Brighton on Friday evening that saw them 3-0 up inside half an hour. It allowed them to treat 66% of the game as a training exercise and gave them some valuable extra rest ahead of the trip to Biella in Italy.

Arsenal are yet to lose since Renee Slegers took temporary charge of the team, with three wins and a draw in that time. But Juve will undoubtedly be their stiffest test yet under the Dutch interim coach and defeat would leave them with no room for error in the remainder of the group stage.

TEAM NEWS

Mariona is fit and available after resting a small muscle injury for the game against Brighton on Friday. Victoria Pelova (knee) and Amanda Ilestedt (maternity leave) are the only other absentees, Laura Wienroither has travelled with the squad after a knee injury.

Available squad
Goalkeepers: 1.Zinsberger 14.van Domselaar 40.Williams
Defenders: 2.Fox 3.Wubben-Moy 5.L.Codina 6.Williamson 7.Catley 11.McCabe 26.Wienroither 62.Reid
Midfielders: 10.Little 12.L.Maanum 13.Walti 16.Kafaji 22.Kuhl 32.Cooney-Cross
Forwards: 9.Mead 17.Hurtig 19.Foord 23.Russo 25.Blackstenius 53.Liaison 56.Godfrey

A WORD FROM THE BOSS
‘It will be a different type of football to what we usually play against in the WSL. We are expecting them to make it really hard for us with the way they defend. It’s from a WSL perspective it is unorthodox, they are a little more player for player in the way they play. That is a new challenge for us and we work hard to try to exploit this defending system they play.

‘They have a lot of qualities, we don’t know their starting eleven yet but there are a lot of qualities in their team in all the units. It is a strong opposition, good at counter attacking so we have to try to find the right balance of knowing when to go forwards fast and when to slow it down.

‘It is going to be a big challenge for us but the players are on board with this and I think they have a good idea of what their game will look like, we try to manage them the best we can. We go there to play our best football and we have big belief in what we can do. We will see how the game progresses and the decisions we have to make but we go there to win.’

LAST TIME OUT
The teams met in the group stages two seasons ago and, at Juventus’ Allianz Arena, Arsenal were held to a 1-1 draw. Lineth Beerensteyn gave Juve the lead with her international colleague Vivianne Miedema equalising.

THE OPPOSITION
Formed ahead of the 2017-18 season, Juve immediately went on to dominate Italian women’s football, winning the league title in each of their first five seasons of existence. In 2021-22, former Gunners boss Joe Montemurro took the club over and led them to the domestic treble as well as the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Since 2022, however, they have yielded their domestic dominance to AS Roma, who have won the last two league titles, with Juve playing second fiddle domestically for the first time. Montemurro left last season amid a fallout with Sporting Director Stefano Braghini, whose contract was extended the day Montemurro left.

Boasting Italian national team mainstays such as Sara Gama, Barbara Bonansea and Christian Girelli, Juve also have a good blend of imported talent like Hanna Bennison, Viola Calligaris and former Arsenal goalkeeper Pauline Peyraud-Magnin. Juve are a strong counter attacking team and haven’t conceded in their last four matches.

PLAYER TO WATCH

Arsenal probably still haven’t quite worked out how to maximise the talent of Mariona Caldentey yet, even if she has played well since joining the club from Barcelona. Her pre-assist for Russo’s goal against Manchester United gave a glimpse of her creative qualities but the fact that she has been deployed variously on the right, the left and as a number 10 illustrates that Arsenal haven’t entirely worked out how best to utilise het yet.

With Mariona rested due to a muscle niggle on Friday, Arsenal went back to their old slippers with Mead, Foord and Maanum forming the trio behind Alessia Russo and it coincided with their best attacking display of the season. However, my own view is that Brighton were so poor that, had she started, Mariona would have comfortably come out of the game with at least one direct goal contribution.

Still the question remains as to where she lines up against Juve, if indeed Slegers does decide to put her straight back in the line-up. Mariona has a lot of experience of winning this competition, let alone playing in it and her experience will be useful in that respect. It will just be interesting to see where Slegers decides to field her.

PREDICTED LINE-UP

Subs: 3.Wubben-Moy 5.L.Codina 12.L.Maanum 14.van Domselaar 16.Kafaji 17.Hurtig 22.Kuhl 25.Blackstenius 26.Wienroither 32.Cooney-Cross 40.Williams

HOW TO CATCH THE GAME
The match takes place at the Vittorio Pozzo Stadium in Biella and kicks off at 5.45pm UK time. The match will be shown live and free of charge on DAZN’s website (no subscription is required).

COMING UP
We are out in Biella and will have every word from Renee Slegers’ post-match press conference on the site shortly after full-time and we should be able to talk to a player too. We will also have Aidan Gibson’s on the whistle match report shortly after full-time.