For Arsenal, this was as cruel an end as you could write. A historic Champions League semi-final with Wolfsburg, with a sold out Emirates Stadium and a record crowd for a women’s club match in England, did not finish with the outcome the majority of the 60,063 had longed for. But that is life, a reality this Arsenal team understands more than most, and from this heartbreak Jonas Eidevall’s side can instead take away something else.
It may not compensate for being denied a first Champions League final since 2007 in the 119th minute, but from being dealt the most rotten of hands - a squad decimated by injuries and torn apart by misfortune - Arsenal can still come away from this having produced an extraordinary night. What could have turned out to be a turgid season, given everything that has transpired against them, instead developed into this: a record crowd, a breathless tie, a night to redefine possibilities.
Eidevall was proud of that, but the outcome remains just so devastatingly harsh on a team who had simply refused to go down. Lotte Wubben-Moy was inconsolable at the end but Beth Mead and Leah Williamson, her right leg covered in strapping, hobbled on and tried their best. Wubben-Moy had been robbed by Jule Brand and it was the Arsenal defender’s costly mistake that led to Pauline Bremer’s dramatic winner. But Wubben-Moy had been outstanding, as had the exceptional Jen Beattie alongside her.
Wubben-Moy, a lifelong Arsenal fan, for whom a night like this was beyond what she possibly could have dreamed of, had set up Beattie’s equaliser in normal time. The England defender was another player who may not have played had Williamson and captain Kim Little been fit, but supplied the excellent cross on her weaker foot to set up Beattie’s header - Arsenal clawing themselves back level once again at 4-4 in the tie, another twist in this wonderful semi-final.
Given everything Arsenal had overcome, there could not have been a more fitting goalscorer than Beattie. A player who has recovered from breast cancer and battled chemotherapy, who had barely played before Williamson ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament two weeks ago, was a giant across both legs in the centre of a patched-up defence. Beattie was symbolic of how Arsenal never quit, no matter how bad their situation seemed.
As Beattie fell backwards after planting her header into the bottom left corner, she barged over Alexandra Popp. It had been Popp’s moment before then, of course it had been, and it was fitting too that the wily and experienced Germany striker had also played her part. Beattie and Popp had featured when Arsenal faced Wolfsburg in the 2013 Champions League semi-final. They were playing the same game now, locked in battle, but in front of a landscape that has shifted beyond recognition. A decade ago their clash was played at Boreham Wood in front of 1,406.
“It’s an emotional thing for everyone to experience,” Wubben-Moy said on Sunday, talking as much about those who had pathed the way before, and the 24-year-old and Beattie, a generation apart but sharing the stage, had helped deny Wolfsburg until the last.
The German champions were the favourites here. They had the experience of this level and were close to full strength, while what Arsenal have been through this year would be enough to consign any club to a season of downright misery - robbed of Mead, Vivianne Miedema and Williamson to ACL injuries, their captain Little as well.
Almost ridiculously, they suffered even more injuries tonight. Already without Caitlin Foord, then losing Stina Blackstenius, the scorer of their first-half opener. Laura Wienroither, a substitute, was stretchered off - another terrible blow. Eidevall’s squad had already been pulled to its limits and the Arsenal manager would have every right to look up and just plead for the rain to stop pouring, just for a moment.
But yet again, this team stood up and refused to submit without a fight. They had overturned a 1-0 defeat to knock out Bayern Munich at the Emirates, then they were 2-0 down at Wolfsburg, then they were 4-3 down at home. In extra time, Bremer shattered the noise and a frenzied atmosphere - apart from the ripple of lime green in the far corner. But Katie McCabe, who didn’t stop all night, had kissed the crossbar with a drifting cross just moments before, and that’s how close Arsenal came to setting up a final with Barcelona on June 3.
The Emirates itself was resplendent at kick-off, a sliver of the pitch on the far side covered in the golden sun of the first early evening of May, a blue sky backing the rolling wave of the top tier. And it was packed, row after row, tier after tier. It was a stunning sight and in its glow Arsenal were too.
Wolfsburg were made to suffer to begin with, as much by the Emirates than by Arsenal, but Eidevall’s side raised everything to another level - their aggression, their swagger, and their composure.
Lia Walti and Frida Maanum were magnificent in midfield: Maanum haring around and doing the work of two, Walti a level of class and touch above. There was Victoria Pelova dropping a shoulder and rolling an audacious nutmeg through the legs of Lena Oberdorf - who was frankly having a terrible time. McCabe had chopped Oberdorf down for the opening goal - and clear foul, but not given - before Walti cut Wolfsburg apart with her through ball to Blackstenius. The Wolfsburg goalkeeper Merle Frohms and central defender Kathrin Hendrich, experienced Germany internationals both, melted into one. Blackstenius rolled the ball into the empty net and the Emirates erupted.
If you could freeze time as an Arsenal fan, you would perhaps choose that moment - playing like this, here, in front of this crowd, in the semi-finals of the Champions League and the biggest occasion of the club’s history - without going into the heartbreak that would follow. Wolfsburg equalised with Jill Roord’s fine strike against her former team from the edge of the box. Arsenal needed to go again and almost did - Blackstenius turning Maritz’s cross from the right past Frohms - another explosion, this time cut out by the offside flag.
Wolfsburg, settled and enjoying this now, raised it again. Popp was growing into it, sensing her moment, everywhere in a role that was as much force of nature than No 10. Suddenly, there she was, the corner from the right falling to her in a crowd of bodies. Svenja Huth could have finished it with a shot that flashed past the far post. After Beattie salvaged extra time, Lina Hurtig came close for Arsenal - denied by Frohms. McCabe’s cross hit the bar but Arsenal looked to have reached penalties, and who knows what else from there. But then Wubben-Moy was caught, Brand pounced, and an extraordinary season was denied its latest miracle.
