We’re less than 24 hours away from the biggest game of our season - a UEFA Women’s Champions League final against Barcelona in Lisbon.Victory in Portugal would see us lift the European trophy for the second time in our history, having previously won the UEFA Women’s Cup in 2007.
Read more Highlights: How we won the 2007 UEFA Women’s Cup
BOUYANT BARCA
Barcelona won the Liga F this year as well as the Supercopa de Espana with a 5-0 win over Real Madrid, and have the finals of the Copa de la Reina and Copa Catalunya still to come.They won the first 15 Liga F games in a row this season before losing 2-1 at home to Levante. Their only other defeat was a 3-1 loss at home to Real Madrid, who they had beaten 4-0 away from home.In the Champions League, Barcelona finished joint top of Group D alongside Manchester City on 15 points, but had a much higher goal difference. It was City who beat them 2-0 at the Joie Stadium in their first match of the group stages.
Read more Everything you need to know about Barcelona
Barca beat Wolfsburg 10-2 on aggregate in the quarter-finals, before beating Chelsea 8-2 on aggregate in the semis, including a 4-1 victory at Stamford Bridge.Ewa Pajor is the top scorer with 43 goals in all competitions after Sunday's 6-0 win over Athletic Club. She arrived from VfL Wolfsburg in the summer transfer window.
Read more Byrne: "If one team can beat Barcelona, it's us!"
WHAT THE MANAGERS SAYSlegers: “We want to show courage tomorrow. Like I said before, we respect Barcelona as a team. They're a really, really good football team. So we're very humble for the occasion, but also we are here to win. And we have to find ways to win and I am convinced that the game will shift in momentum.“And for us it's going to be important that we deal with all moments really, really well in the game. So we need courage, we need discipline, we need to be switched on. We're going to have to make a lot of decisions on the stage. So if we do that really well, I think we can perform really well tomorrow in the game and we have to believe in our capacity tomorrow.”
Read more Every word of our pre-Barcelona press conference
Romeu: “It's a special game, a final. We come from a strong performance throughout the competition, often playing excellent matches. This team has experience from previous matches, and we know the kind of game we want to play."We know the style of play we want. We are a team with varied strengths, controlling different phases of the match. We'll try to exploit the spaces they leave us."TEAM NEWS
Rosa Kafaji is our only absentee with a foot injury, while Barcelona haven't reported any injuries.FACTS AND STATS
We have progressed through all four of our knockout stage ties against Spanish opposition in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, already coming from behind to eliminate Real Madrid in the quarter-finals this season. Only Lyon can boast a better 100% progression rate against teams from a particular nation in the competition (five v Italian clubs).Our 18 year gap between European finals is comfortably the biggest gap between two appearances in the final of the competition by any team (Turbine Potsdam and Eintracht Frankfurt – four year wait each). Wolfsburg, meanwhile, are the only previous team to win both of their first two UEFA Women’s Champions League finals (2013 and 2014).We are the first team ever to reach the final of the UEFA Women’s Champions League despite losing the first leg of both our quarter-final (vs Real Madrid) and semi-final (vs Lyon) ties; the team scoring first in the last seven finals since 2018 have won the competition five times.
Read more Our route to the Women's Champions League final
Renée Slegers is aiming to become the first Dutch manager to win the UEFA Women’s Champions League and third overall to win either the men’s or women’s competition after Louis Van Gaal (1995 with Ajax) and Frank Rijkaard (2006 with Barcelona).Alessia Russo and Mariona Caldentey have scored seven goals each in the UEFA Women’s Champions League this season with only Vivianne Miedema in 2019/20 (10) and Kim Little in 2009/10 (nine) ever scoring more times in a campaign for an English club, with both also doing so for us.Mariona is the only current Arsenal player to have ever featured in a final of the UEFA Women’s Champions League, playing in five for Barcelona between 2019 and 2024. The Barcelona squad meanwhile have made 48 collective appearances in finals.MATCH OFFICIALS
Croatia's Ivana Martincic will referee the final. An international referee since 2014, she will take charge of her first Champions League final having been the fourth official at last year's decider between Lyon and Barcelona in Bilbao.This season, she has been a match official in three Champions League matches and has also been selected as a referee for the upcoming UEFA Women's EURO 2025 final tournament.Referee: Ivana MartincicAssistants: Sanja Rodak-Karsic & Maja PetravicFourth official: Ivana ProjkovskaVAR: Tiago Bruno Lopes MartinsAssistant VAR: Momcilo MarkovicTHE PREVIOUS MEETINGS
We have fond memories of our first two encounters with Barcelona - a 3-0 win away from home followed by a 4-0 victory at Meadow Park in 2012 in the round of 32 stage. Jen Beattie, Jordan Nobbs and Katie Chapman got the goals in Spain, before Beattie stole the headlines with a hat-trick in Borehamwood, followed by a goal from Kim Little.There was less for us to celebrate in 2021, Barcelona beating us 4-1 and 4-0 in the group stages with Caldentey scoring against us in our home match.LIVE COVERAGE
Supporters can tune into Live From N5 on Arsenal.com or the official app for pre-match build-up and live match commentary. The game will be shown live on TNT Sports 1 and DAZN in the UK.Before the match, watch Live From Lisbon from 3.45pm to 4.15pm as Nicole Holliday and Emma Byrne give their pre-match analysis and predictions from the stadium.
Read more Watch the Women's Champions League final on TV
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