One of the great things about sport is that it is generally a blend of deliberate strategy and unplanned chaos. “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth” and all that. But that quote implies the chaos always works in the opposite direction to the plan. Sometimes, the plan creates the situation, and the unexpected knockout blow makes the plan look clever.
Arsenal’s equaliser in their 2-1 win over OL Lyonnes was, frankly, a daft goal. Mariona Caldentey passed a free kick into the box, Stina Blackstenius couldn’t quite reach it in time, but OL Lyonnes goalkeeper Christiane Endler took her eye off the ball, let it run past her, and defender Ingrid Engen, in trying to clear the ball, ended up turning it over the line for an own goal.
Endler and Engen seemed so rattled by this concession that they were also the two players involved in the mix-up for the second goal, turned home into an empty net by Olivia Smith.
That free kick for the equaliser was the turning point.
Although a freak incident, it was actually very similar to a corner Arsenal played in the first half. In that moment, Caldentey looked up, assessed the situation, and raised her right arm. Then, rather than whipping the ball into the middle, she sidefooted it along the ground. Leah Williamson, making a run around the pack of players from the far post to the near, couldn’t reach the ball, and it was cleared. An irrelevant incident in isolation.
But then came the free kick. There’s the same pattern here. Caldentey again raised her right arm and sidefooted a ball into space at the near post.
Arsenal can’t take credit for the ball actually ending up in the net, but it seems like there was, at least, some kind of plan.
So who came up with it?
Before the game, Renee Slegers mentioned that OL Lyonnes were “a threat from set pieces”, and that aerial power is obvious when they’re defending as well as attacking. Arsenal have a habit of playing those low passes from set pieces against aerially dominant sides — they scored a similar type of goal against Sporting CP earlier this season. Afterwards, Slegers insisted the somewhat strange goals were not all about luck.
“The first goal is hard for a goalkeeper because the ball goes in front (of her) and has runners (coming across), so it’s hard to see, and puts the opposition off guard,” she said. “And the second goal is a really good moment in the press that we wanted to create. That is football. Sometimes you score the most brilliant goals — like Mariona away in OL Lyonnes last year — but these types of goals are also goals in football.”
“We play what we see,” Caldentey said after the game. “Someone is always making that run, so if it’s Stina or someone else, someone will always be there to tap it in. If not, it’s still difficult to defend against.”
“We have a clear plan; set pieces are different, a set situation, so we go into a game with clear plans and then the players can choose and recognise what the best option is. Chris (Bradley, set-piece coach) does a great job. Then the players are empowered to make those decisions.”
Christiane Endler watches as the ball sails into the net (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Overall, Arsenal deserved their first-leg advantage on the balance of play. They started the game strongly, with the fit-again Williamson firing some excellent forward passes into the feet of Blackstenius and Alessia Russo. OL Lyonnes’ opener, scored by Jule Brand, was rather against the run of play and knocked Arsenal off their stride for the rest of the first half. But a renewed sense of purpose and energy high up the pitch meant Arsenal dominated the second half, completing the turnaround.
Slegers spent the final few minutes of the game summoning all her tallest players from the bench, in order to guard against a OL Lyonnes aerial bombardment that never quite arrived.
Arsenal will head to France next weekend with a one-goal lead, having won last year’s semi-final second leg at OL Lyonnes in convincing fashion, 4-1, after trailing by a goal from the first leg. Against an OL Lyonnes side who need to dominate, Arsenal will need to be up for a proper challenge — Slegers described OL Lyonnes as the most physical side she has encountered.
But Arsenal will try to play their own game, and those low set pieces symbolise something wider. Arsenal fundamentally believe in their ability to outplay opponents in a technical sense even if, ultimately, the two crucial goals here were as scrappy as they come.