Here’s Suzanne Wrack’s match report. With the YouTube coverage having very much finished, I’m going to sign off with this. Bye!
The smile said it all. Lifelong Arsenal fan Lotte Wubben-Moy’s equaliser late on salvaged a 1-1 draw against Wolfsburg in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final and she beamed widely. Tabea Wassmuth had given the relaxed German side a first-half lead but Wubben-Moy’s strike, in her first start at the Emirates, ensured that Arsenal will travel to the Wolfsburg Arena next week with the tie level.
Much more here:
The scoreline looks uninspiring, but this was a good game that should have had a few more goals, with both sides carrying a strong attacking threat. According to Uefa Arsenal had 40 “attacks” to Wolfsburg’s 15, though I’ve no idea how they define an attack. They definitely had 15 shots to their opponents’ 10, and failed to take several chances. But they will also know that Wassmuth had a fantastic chance to swing the tie heavily in Wolfsburg’s favour only to shoot against the post. Still anyone’s quarter-final!
1 – VfL Wolfsburg’s Tabea Waßmuth lead all players in the first leg of the #UWCL quarterfinals in the following categories:
— OptaFranz (@OptaFranz) March 23, 2022
🥇 Shots (5)
🥇 Shots on Target (4)
🥇 Non-Penalty Expected Goals (1.0)
Flashy. #ARSWOB pic.twitter.com/vn3OUbUxGi
Final score: Arsenal 1-1 Wolfsburg
90+4 mins: It’s all over! And there’s nothing to split them at the end of the first leg!
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90+2 mins: Another booking, Wedemeyer pulling Heath back.
bAnd into stoppage time we go. There’ll be three minutes or so.
90 mins: The visitors bring Rebecka Blomqvist on for Oberdorf.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-1 Wolfsburg (Wubben-Moy, 89 mins)
Arsenal draw level! I’m absolutely certain that Heath was shooting, but it was low and not very good and Wubben-Moy intercepts, controls and hammers into the net!
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88 mins: A lovely challenge by Oberdorf on Miedema is ruined only by the fact she could only execute it by first gabbing a fistful of the Arsenal player’s shirt. Arsenal have a decent shooting chance from the free kick.
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86 mins: Maanum turns inside the penalty area but mishits her shot, which would have dribbled wide had Schult not picked it up.
85 mins: Arsenal work a crossing chance for Maritz, but she floats the ball straight to Schult.
83 mins: Arsenal take off Mead and Blackstenius and bring on Nikita Parris and Frida Maanum.
81 mins: A lovely run from Huth, weaving her way infield across the byline, but Zinsberger gets in the way of her attempt to pass the ball across goal to Jonsdottir.
78 mins: Pauline Bremer and Sveindis Jonsdottir come on for Wolfsburg, with Roord and Wassmuth coming off.
76 mins: Eventually Catley concedes a free kick, gets a yellow card, and Heath comes on for McCabe.
75 mins: Arsenal want to bring Tobin Heath on, but the ball hasn’t gone out of play for ages.
73 mins: Wassmuth pings a 23-yarder that flies low into the arms of Zinsberger. Surely there are more goals in this game.
70 mins: Miedema lashes a first-time shot wide of the near post. It would have had to be a perfect, and pretty vicious, shot to go in from there.
68 mins: Mead continues her record of being involved in every booking this evening, though this time she’s on the receiving end not of the foul but of the referee’s caution. That means Mead, who has been Arsenal’s brightest player tonight, is going to miss the second leg.
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66 mins: At the other end, Mead is given offside when she was not, and now we will never know what might have happened had she been allowed to play on.
64 mins: Well this is linguistically interesting. It appears that Germans don’t hit the woodwork, the strike the aluminium.
61' ALUMINIUM!! Jill Roord trifft leider nur den Pfosten. KÄMPFEN, WÖLFINNEN!!#ARSWOB 0:1
— VfL Wolfsburg Frauen (@VfL_Frauen) March 23, 2022
61 mins: Wolfsburg are so close to doubling their lead! First Wassmuth is played through, but her finish hits the inside of the post and somehow bounces to safety (replays suggest she was offside, but the flag stayed down). Then Lattwein crosses to Huth, who turns it against the other post!
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60 mins: Zinsberger easily catches Huth’s cross, which might be the first thing she’s had to do since half-time.
58 mins: The free kick is played low into the area, is flicked on, but falls to a Wolfsburg foot and they hack it clear. The visitors’ goal is leading a charmed life at present, but for how long?
57 mins: Arsenal have restarted the game excellently. Popp gets a booking for a foul on Mead.
55 mins: Another corner, which eventually leads to Mead playing the ball low across goal, and it rumbles barely two yards from the goalline all the way across and out the other side.
53 mins: Arsenal win a corner and take it quickly, and win a throw-in and take it quickly, but don’t create anything on either occasion.
50 mins: Blackstenius has the ball in the net, but the ref’s assistant has her flag in the air! She was indeed offside when the ball was played through, but she went round the keeper and finished nicely.
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49 mins: Arsenal have had enough chances to be level now, but still no dice.
47 mins: Blackstenius misses an open goal! Miedema’s excellent pass finds Maritz on the right, Schult gets nowhere near her cross, and Blackstenius’s left-foot volley loops well wide of an empty net!
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47 mins: Mead gets to the byline, just a couple of years wide of goal, cuts back infield, but chooses to square the ball straight to a defender!
46 mins: Peeeeeep! The players are back out and action has recommenced!
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Half time: Arsenal 0-1 Wolfsburg
45+2 mins: That’s the end of the first half. Arsenal have attempted 298 passes, precisely a hundred more than their opponents, but that’s probably how a counter-attacking team like Wolfsburg would like it.
45+1 mins: There’ll be just the one minute of stoppage time at the end of the opening half.
43 mins: Catley lifts the ball into the area, but it floats into Schult’s arms. In her desperation to reach it Williamson flattens a couple of Wolfsburg players, including the keeper.
41 mins: The first yellow card of the night goes to Felicitas Rauch for desperately trying to hoof the ball away before Mead takes it off her but doing so late enough that she hoofed Mead rather than the ball.
37 mins: Arsenal very nearly steal the ball in Wolfsburg’s area as they try to pass out of defence. Fact is, though, they don’t and a few seconds later the ball’s down the other end and the visitors are putting together another dangerous break.
34 mins: Now Mead is played into the left of the area, and she cuts inside Hendrich to work an excellent shooting chance, before blasting a shot straight at Schult.
33 mins: Blackstenius is played into the left of the area, but she’s forced to turn back and Arsenal’s attack peters out.
30 mins: Schult scrambles across goal to turn McCabe’s header a little further wide than it was already going. Better safe then sorry, I suppose.
28 mins: Obviously this is very much going Wolfsburg’s way now, and they have been able to keep Arsenal at arm’s length while breaking with pace and menace.
25 mins: Another chance for Wolfsburg! Again Huth is released with a long ball down the right, and her cross finds Popp at the far post, who heads over the bar.
22 mins: After a poor first touch from Miedema forces her to shuffle the ball backwards McCabe tries her luck with a 30-yard volley, but it spins away from goal.
GOAL! Arsenal 0-1 Wolfsburg (Wassmuth, 19 mins)
When Wolfsburg do move forward, they rip open the Arsenal defence. First a shot from the edge of the area, palmed away by Zinsberger, then a low cross goes across goal without anwone getting anything on it, and finally an aerial cross lands on Wassmuth’s head, and she guides it into the corner of the net!
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18 mins: Kathrin-Julia Hendrich plays about 15 passes in the space of a minute, mostly to Oberdorf, who keeps giving it back again.
14 mins: A promising ball over the Wolfsburg defence bounces away from Blackstenius and into the hands of Schult.
11 mins: Arsenal have had a good few minutes, at least in terms of possession.
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8 mins: Oberdorf earns herself a talking-to for bringing down Mead.
5 mins: Arsenal have a fantastic opportunity to break from that corner, but the pass through to Blackstenius is criminally overhit. Wolfsburg intercept and attack down the left, from where Wassmuth’s cross was so obviously going straight to a defender that she didn’t even feel the need to move towards it and Huth was thus able to steal in and head wide.
4 mins: Oberdorf’s nice ball finds Huth running down the right for Wolfsburg, and she can’t get a cross past the nearest defender she can eventually win a corner.
1 min: The first shot of the game comes just 37 seconds in, but from the edge of the area Beth Mead’s left-footer zips wide.
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1 min: Peeeeeep! The home side get the ball rolling.
Out come the players! The crowd at the Emirates is largely in one bit of one side of the ground, and is doing its best to make a bit of atmosphere. Arsenal have brought in a few professional flag-wavers for the anthem bit.
Here’s a picture of Arsenal’s Leah Williamson arriving at the ground, interesting largely because she’s had to bring her actual passport to get in, which suggests some pretty intense security especially given that her team are at home, and she also seems to have packed several bags of kit, which combined with the passport suggests she might be hoping to make an Escape to Victory-style getaway at some point during the game and be on a flight to Rio/alternative sun-kissed destination with no reciprocal deportation agreement before the night’s out.
The teams!
Tonight’s line-ups look like this:
Arsenal: Zinsberger, Wubben-Moy, Williamson, Catley, Maritz, Little, Walti, Miedema, McCabe, Blackstenius, Mead. Subs: Beattie, Nobbs, Maanum, Parris, Williams, Boye Sorensen, Wienroither, Heath.
Wolfsburg: Schult, Wedemeyer, Hendrich, Janssen, Rauch, Oberdorf, Popp, Wasmuth, Lattwein, Huth, Roord. Subs: Jonsdottir, Wilms, Bremer, Kassen, Starke, Smits, Blomqvist, van de Sanden, Weiss, Knaak.
Referee: Jana Adámková (Czechia).
🔴⚪️ ARSENAL TEAM NEWS ⚪️🔴@UWCL quarter-finals | Emirates Stadium ✨#COYG ✊ pic.twitter.com/OKe8bUIx1o
— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) March 23, 2022
So starten die Wölfinnen gegen @ArsenalWFC! 💪
— VfL Wolfsburg Frauen (@VfL_Frauen) March 23, 2022
📺➡ @DAZNFootball und Youtube (https://t.co/kVS6YPNASD)#ARSWOB #VfLWolfsburg @UWCL pic.twitter.com/f5bO6SkAjE
Hello world!
The current leaders in England’s WSL - Arsenal have 40 points from 17 games and are two points ahead of Chelsea - play the side leading the way in the Frauen Bundesliga - Wolfsburg have 44 points from their 17 games, one more than Bayern Munich - in what might be an absolute humdinger. We should all be extremely excited.
Slightly scarily so far as the Gunners are concerned Wolfsburg have won their last seven matches in all competitions (aggregate score: 27-3) and in their last Champions League outing stuck an unanswered four past Chelsea. The Gunners have won their last five (aggregate score: 19-2) and appear to have recovered from their turn-of-the-year wobble, but none of those wins have been against particularly fearsome sides (with all due credit to Reading, seventh in the WSL, are the highest-ranked of their recent opponents) and in their last Champions League outing conceded four to Eintracht Frankfurt, currently fourth in the Bundesliga (Wolfsburg, as it happens, play them this weekend).
“They are very good on the counter-attack and we haven’t played a team this season as good on counter-attacks,” admitted Jonas Eidevall, the Arsenal manager. “But our style of football, I don’t think Wolfsburg have been exposed to that either. So that excites me.”
Jonas, it excited us all.
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