Arsenal captain Kim Little spoke to the media after the [1-0 win over Barcelona](https://arseblog.news/2025/05/report-arsenal-1-0-barcelona-inc-goal/) saw the Gunners win the Champions League for a second time.
Here’s what she had to say.
**Hi there, Tim Stillman, Arseblog News. Kim, I’ve only just stopped crying, so I’m going to try and keep this brief. But to beat Barcelona, you have to be basically perfect. And I just wanted to ask you about the performance those players put in today in such a high-pressure environment.**
Thank you. Yeah, we knew coming into this game that we had to be basically perfect to beat a Barcelona team,who have been one of the best teams in Europe in recent years. And I think we worked on it this week. We did things that didn’t work, and we changed it to what we hoped would work. And that did ultimately today.
I think the team showed incredible discipline and focus throughout the game to do that. And then, as a squad, the players who came on to impact the game when the game was at 0-0 was pretty incredible. And for Beth and Stina to come in and make that impact, obviously, is another part of it.
So across the board, it was just, yeah, an incredible performance.
**Hi, Kim, it’s Alice from BBC Sport. First of all, congratulations, incredible achievement. I can imagine this is really difficult for you, but if you can try and put into words just what this means to you, given your journey with Arsenal and just everything that you felt at the club.**
Yeah, it’s very special for me. I’ve also been at the club a very long time, and we’ve had incredible periods where we’ve been successful. Obviously, the club won it in 2007. And I signed the year after that, so to still be at the club now after that long period and to see how much it’s done to progress the women’s game and invest in us as players and as a club, it’s truly special to be sitting here now today, off the back of winning the ultimate trophy for club football. It’s definitely the best moment of my career.
**Hi Kim, Kit from The Times. It might be another kind of difficult one to put into words, but as well as a fantastic story and a fantastic journey for Arsenal women, this feels like, frankly, one of the greatest days in the 140-year history of Arsenal, one of the biggest football clubs in the world. How much are you aware of what you’ve achieved, even on that massive scale?**
Yeah, I’m not quite sure at all of something yet, even the way you spoke about it there. I’m not sure that’s probably gone through the players’ minds yet, just because we’re still in the moment. But, yeah, to have won a Champions League with Arsenal, yeah, it also will definitely go down in history as one of the best moments this club’s ever had.
So to think about it like that is, yeah, it’s incredible. I’m sure days after this day, we’ll reflect on it and really see that.
**Kim, Graham from UEFA. First of all, congratulations. The way that all of you played, particularly in stressful moments, I know you played exceptionally well. It felt like you read Barcelona really well about what they were going to do. How does the balance lie? Because it genuinely looked like you’d anticipated everything that they had, obviously.**
Yeah, we spoke a lot about their limitations and how best to deal with them. And we tried some different things during the week that didn’t work well and tried to play against that with our players. And we changed it to a way that we felt like we could accept a lot of their runs and movement, but also allow them to play mostly in front of us. And I think, yes, they did get behind us at times, but I think we were definitely in really good positions to defend the box when they did that, which was because of how we managed it in front. So yeah, like we spoke about earlier, it was kind of a perfect execution of a game plan, which as a footballer is one of the best things.
**I think in the full-time whistle there was yourself and Leah sort of collapsed to the floor, I think Lotte was there. Can you just tell me what that moment was like when the full-time whistle went and you got to celebrate with each other?**
We’d gone through the game together and been quite close to each other as well, obviously being captain and vice-captain. And it was a really hard game, it was hot. You have to go quite within yourself to bring out what we did and try and stay focused. It’s really difficult to do that when the temperature is high and it’s a really intense and physical game like that. So there’s that kind of relief at the end a little bit and then just that special moment to share with Leah, especially obviously someone who’s been at the club a very long time, it means a lot to her. And with myself as well and how much it means to me too. It’s so special to share that moment and obviously to live it with her too.
**I have a follow-up question. Can you say a word about what Renee Slegers brings to the team? Because it seems that since she arrived, the team can face anything, any scenario during a game.**
Yeah, obviously Rene came in as manager earlier in the season and a lot of our blueprint and what we did kind of stayed but we’ve adjusted some things to allow, I think, a little bit more fluidity and to be more dynamic in how we work, both within our press and how we build. And I think alongside Rene, our assistant coach Aaron, and our backroom staff, Romel and Kelly and Chris Bradley, who’s our set-piece coach, the detail and kind of balance they all have between each other is definitely a well-functioning machine.
So I think across the board, they then allow us to be able to have the right information so that we can put on the pitch and play games like we did today.
**Can you tell us a bit about the sort of message in the dressing room, firstly before the game and then again at half-time? And what sort of things were you saying to each other to help deliver that performance?**
Yeah, it was fairly calm, I think that’s one of the key things when you get to these big games. You know, it’s obviously different in many ways but it’s also still a 90-minute game, which is what we do weekly. So a lot of it was very calm and task-focused about what we were executing and what different changes we did depending on who was playing.
For example, Pina played and that was a little bit different to their other forwards. So it’s just small details on how do we do stuff and then at half-time it’s very similar. There’s details around set-pieces and then maybe how do we need to manage things a little bit better.
But because we did fairly well, it was quite consistent throughout. And then we also just get information when there were stops in the games to just slightly change formation at the end to defend the lead. But yeah, I think that showed in our performance that how we approached the game was very controlled and then with little pointers of the belief that we had and the courage that we wanted to show because we knew we wouldn’t need that against a team like Barcelona.
**Is that quite typical of Renee, that calmness, rather than say like a big brave heart speech? She’s quite calm, is that fair?**
Yeah, yeah, definitely. She’ll say her words and her speech but in a very calm and controlled way and concisely. So yeah, definitely.