Leah Williamson backs Arsenal to handle Women’s Champions League qualifier pressure in clash with Rangers
LEAH WILLIAMSON insists Arsenal aim to avoid the hurt of a Champions League qualifier exit when they face Rangers.
The Gunners host Scotland’s top-flight leaders tomorrow evening with a place in the first round qualifying final at stake.
The 7:30pm Meadow Park clash comes almost a year after Williamson’s side were knocked out on penalties last term in the contest’s qualifier stage by French side Paris FC.
And the Arsenal centre-back, 27, who was then working her way to back fitness from a ruptured knee ligament, insists her team are eager to get the job done this time around.
Williamson said: “Last year was a hurtful situation. We were left to regret that for the rest of the year.
“Everyone knows what it feels like to lose, no one wants to feel like that again.
“But with this team, one of the benefits, or one of the strengths of the team, is the intensity that we’ve played at.
“And when pressure arrives, that sort of tension can be taken out on the way that we play.”
The last time Williamson featured in a Champions League fixture for her club was in March 2023.
Back then she helped the Gunners overturn a 1-0 quarter-final first-leg deficit against Bayern Munich.
They sealed a 2-1 aggregate victory in a second-leg clash at the Emirates.
And it was Williamson’s backheeled assist that teed up Frida Maanum’s stunning top corner strike which put the game to bed.
The defender, who made her senior Arsenal debut in a Champions League last eight duel with Birmingham ten years ago added: “That night of football was incredible.
“It was the first time I think I really felt the real magic of the Champions League with overturning a 1-0 deficit.
“There were so many elements. Frida’s goal was incredible.
“And it was the first time on a night like that, with that many people coming out to watch us, when there was rain and it was cold.
“But that is actually my core memory when I think about playing in the Champions League. That’s the last game I played in it.
“Tomorrow night, regardless of it being a qualifier and not quarter-final, that does not matter to me.
“It’s Champions League and I’m very excited to get back involved.
“And the opportunity of playing in those knockout games is special because it offers you those special moments if you are on the right side of them.”
Arsenal will be without the services of forward Beth Mead and defender Steph Catley with the duo both ruled out due to injury.
However the team will have Netherlands goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar in their squad along with new forwards Mariona Caldentey and Rosa Kafaji.
The Wednesday evening game will pit Jonas Eidevall’s Gunners against a Rangers side with five wins from five games in the Scottish Women’s Premier League.
The team are coached by former Arsenal midfielder Jo Potter who also guided her players to a Scottish Women’s Premier League Cup win in March via a 4-1 defeat of Partick Thistle.
Eidevall, 41, adds: “They were very, very close to knocking out Benfica who we know are a good European team.
“We know the qualification stages is not easy. We need to bring our very best from the first second in the game to the very last, so it’s no underestimating opponents from us.”
The victors of tomorrow’s game will face Atletico Madrid or Rosenborg BK in Saturday’s first round qualifier final.
And while boss Eidevall sees the push for a WSL title as his team’s “bread and butter”, reaching the Champions League group stage is a priority.
He adds: “If you look at football as a global phenomenon, Champions League is what makes European football so special.
“It’s what makes the whole world want to come to Europe and compete.
“Of course, if I look it (the game) the league (in England) is our bread and butter.
“That has to be our foundation. That has to be our main target – to win the (Women’s Super) League.
“But Europe always has to be the vision and it’s going to bring the toughest challenges, it’s going to be knockout football and down to moments.
“And it’s the jeopardy of that as well that makes football so exciting.
“As a club, I very much see us as a European club then you need to be a part of the competition and be present in the group stages.”