🧠 Food for Thought - Against All Odds: How We Won The Champions League.
- John Maurice Otieno
- Jun 2
- 8 min read
Updated: Sep 3
Has it sunk in yet? We played a competition single-edition record 15 games in the 2024/25 Champions League, two more than Lyon managed in their title-winning 2021/22 campaign when they beat Barça to the coveted prize.
That's a feat we successfully managed to replicate three seasons later as the Blaugrana fell prey to Stina Blackstenius' 74th-minute winning strike. No team had ever gone all the way to the final starting from round 1 of qualifying, which meant few would've made us favorites to go on and lift the silverware. So, how did we manage to pull off the unthinkable?
Well, strap in. And remember, details matter.
1. Smooth Transition.
Jonas Eidevall navigated the team successfully through the qualifying rounds, but after a heavy loss to Bayern Munich in the first group stage match, coupled with a toxic mood in the fanbase that he felt was affecting the team's performances, he stepped aside. I think the epitome of this was his last game in our dugout when the team absolutely battered Chelsea at the Emirates, but just couldn't convert any of their big chances to claim the points.
Alas, a massive hole was apparent in the team and someone needed to step up and fill it ASAP... and up stepped Assistant Manager Renée Slegers, a natural successor who'd won leagues before in Sweden and had been a part of our staff for over a year. I remember telling someone, "If you want this transition to be as smooth as possible, you give the job to Renée." The team seemingly drew fresh breath under her tutelage and what followed was 5/5 wins in the remaining group-stage games, including a 3-2 victory over the aformentioned Bayern at Borehamwood to win our group.
After an unbeaten run of 11 games in all comps (W10, D1), Renée had more than earned the job when she finally got it permanently in January. It wasn't all plain sailing from there though. As with all new manager bounces, ours hit a stumble when we went behind in the UWCL 1st legs to Real Madrid in the quarter-finals and Lyon in the semis, but we made remarkable comebacks in both 2nd legs to reach and win our first UWCL final in 18 years. When I spoke of a smooth transition, I didn't envision that! And to be fair, neither did our head coach. “It’s an unbelievable moment,” she said after becoming the first Dutch manager to ever win the UWCL.
2. Goals! Goals! Goals!
We scored a whopping 17 goals in the group stages, the joint-most in the group. By the time the tournament came to a conclusion, we'd found the back of the net 26 times, the third highest tally of all teams in the competition.
Two of the top four goal scorers in the tournament were Gunners. Russo and Caldentey spearheading Arsenal's goals, with only Barcelona's Pina (10) netting more than the 7 they each bagged.
3. Clean Sheets Galore!
Only Lyon (6) kept more clean sheets than the four we managed in the 2024/25 UWCL campaign.
Being a team that averages a lot of possession and faces relatively few shots, it's impressive that the 37 saves we made were the third highest in the tournament, with Daphne van Domselaar making 25 of those.
4. Signings Pay Off.
Summer signing Mariona Caldentey had won three Champions Leagues with Barcelona when she swapped shirts, including the previous two in a row. Her impact in the team was instant, registering the joint-most goal involvements for us in the competition (9 - 7G, 2A) and successful dribbles per 90 (1.3). She also created the most chances (19). Being the only player in the squad to have played in a UWCL final, that experience told when she held the ball up in the 2nd phase of a corner kick, patiently waited for Beth to show for a pass on the edge of the box, before the Lioness cleverly played Blackstenius through on goal to win us the title.
Daphne van Domselaar's another astute piece of summer business whose save percentage of 85.2% was the best in the competition, while the 4 goals she conceded were the least of any goalkeeper to play 5+ games.
Despite only joining us in January, Chloe Kelly more than played her part, her two assists launching a 2nd leg quarter-final comeback against Las Blancas at the Emirates. She ended the tournament with a team-high number of assists (3) and successful tackles per 90 (2.1).
[Stats courtesy of FotMob]
5. Doing it the Hard Way.
We fell behind 1-0 away to BK Häcken in the 1st leg of the 2nd qualifying round, but came back to impressively dispatch them 4-0 at Meadow Park. That was to be the story of our title-winning campaign, as we soon after got drawn into what some called the "group of death" alongside Bayern Munich, Juventus and Vålerenga. We suffered a heavy blow at the hands of the German giants in the first group game, but went on to win the other five to claim top spot.
We also became the first team ever to reach the UWCL final despite losing the first leg of both quarter-final (v Real Madrid) and semi-final (v Lyon) ties, earning ourselves the "Comeback Queens" moniker in the process.
[Stats courtesy of UEFA]
6. One Last Hurrah!
It all led to a final showdown against defending champions and three-time winners Barcelona, who had 48 collective UWCL final appearances amongst themselves. Contrast that to the fact that Mariona was the only player in our squad to ever feature in a final, the odds were stacked heavily against us. And if recent history was anything to go by, there was no more room for comebacks as the team scoring first in the previous seven finals since 2018 had won the competition five times. So, how did we leave Lisbon donned in gold?
[Stats courtesy of UEFA]
(i) Dogged Determination.
We hadn't kept a clean sheet in 6 matches going into this showpiece, conceding 12 goals in our last 3 matches, but we dug deep to shut out a free-scoring Barça that hadn't lost in 10 games. The Spanish attacking outfit averaged an xG of 2.9 per game this UWCL campaign before we limited them to just 0.87 in the final. Foord sprinting back in the first-half to cut out a dangerous cut-back before pumping her fist in the air typified this. Being a team that's used to dominating possession, we had to suffer in large spells, seeing only 32% of the ball.
I always say, "When Leah plays well, we play well," and play well she did! Reading the game superbly, only Fox (3) made more interceptions than Williamson (2), while our academy graduate also made a match-high 14 clearances, completed 100% of her tackles and wasn't dribbled past once. Make no mistake, Leah Williamson was at the heart of this defensive masterclass by the Gunners.
[Stats courtesy of FotMob]
(ii) Astute Game Management.
We navigated the game superbly in phases, weathering expected early storms from the Catalan giants as we steadily grew into the game. So much so, the bigger chances in that first-half fell to us, with Little and Kelly unable to find the target, and Maanum stinging the gloves of Cata Coll.
Reinvigorated in the second-half, El Femení completely dominated possession, forcing us deeper and deeper into our own defensive third. Renée Slegers was astute in her game management though, bringing on fresh legs when we were under the cosh and needed an outlet to threaten Barça's high line. That's exactly what Beth and Stina provided when they came on in the 67th minute.
(iii) Substitutes Combine.
The fresh legs did bear fruit as Stina Blackstenius immediately started making clever runs in-behind the Catalans' defense. Indeed, it was such a foray forward by our no. 25 that won us a corner kick, and in the 2nd phase of the set piece, Beth Mead played a clever reverse through ball to the Swede who lashed it into the bottom-left corner in the 74th minute to send the red and white faithful into a frenzy! It took the subs just seven minutes to not only impact the game, but win it.
Stina Blackstenius had been directly involved in big goals in our last couple trophy lifts, scoring the equaliser when we dispatched Chelsea 3-1 in the 2022/23 EFL Cup Final, and grabbing a late winner as we again pipped the Blues to the same title a year later.
Perhaps, it was destined that yet another one of her big goals would crown us Champions of Europe at the expense of arguably the best footballing team in women's world football right now. It's no coincidence, it's a pattern. Stina is a big-game player who scores big goals!
The Nutshell.
We won our 2nd UWCL title 18 years on from our only previous final; a record gap between 1st and 2nd titles and finals. That's all to say we don't just go to finals to participate, or garner experience, we go there to win. "Against all odds" doesn't even begin to describe it.
[Stats courtesy of UEFA]
"We are going to show a lot of respect because Barcelona is a great footballing team, so we are humble but also we are not there just to participate, we will go there to win."
- Renée speaking ahead of the UWCL final
I was fairly confident I'd see this team win big titles, the Champions League included, but the moment I saw them lift that trophy still feels surreal. It is sinking in, but it's going to take a minute.
What about you? Has it quite sunk in for you yet? What do you put down to our team winning arguably the biggest title in club football? Food for thought. 🧠
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