After lifting her 16th major honour with the club, Kim Little admitted that she felt it was our destiny to win this season’s Women’s Champions League.
Kim joined the club the season after our first European triumph and has enjoyed incredible domestic success with five league titles, four FA Cups and six League Cup winners’ medals on her mantlepiece, but her latest accolade will mean so much more as her legacy has grown even stronger after our triumph over Barcelona in Lisbon.
Kim had the honour of skippering the side and revealed it was a special feeling to share the trophy lift with another stalwart in Leah Williamson, to cap off an incredible European campaign that she felt we were set for success in, despite having to start at the first qualifying round.
“It makes it even more special,” she said to TNT Sports post-match. “To lift it with Leah, who's been a childhood Gooner, and for myself as well. We've been in the club a long time and it was an incredible moment.
“You just go day to day and you put in the work and then we've obviously had an incredible run this year in the Champions League and it just felt like our year. I think the game today was the same thing, we played the game the way we wanted it, and it went our way.
“In the other games we had two legs so we had time to adjust. Today, we knew it was one game and we had to execute our gameplan and have to stop them and manage the space well and I think the whole team did that incredibly well today. I'm so proud.”
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Kim admitted that we operated in a different fashion in the final to try and stem the previous holders’ attacks, and believed that everyone who participated performed admirably to prevent the Spanish giants from winning the competition for a third time in a row.
The captain also heaped praise on our substitutes, with replacements Beth Mead and Stina Blackstenius combining to create the game’s pivotal moment which the Swede dispatched into the net to send our supporters into delirium.
“We obviously have different ways of playing,” Kim assessed. “Most of the time we like to possess the ball, especially in the WSL, but obviously today we knew we weren't going to have the ball as much. So we spoke about going, passing the first lines and trying to come to me. It didn't always work, but I think it allowed us to get through the game.
“I think we didn't change it too often, occasionally, to then open up the play when they weren't switched on. But I thought we were really dynamic and we played the game really well.
“Obviously only 11 players can start, but we've got an incredible squad and that was shown today, especially with Beth and Stina coming on and then Lotte and Lina coming on as well to finish out the game.”
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