Arsenal Women have now seen the benchmark of Barca's brilliance close up (2024)

After guiding Arsenal Women to their first league title in seven years in 2019, then-head coach Joe Montemurro had a Champions League campaign to embark upon.

Heading into their new European journey, he purposely set out to face the continent’s elite. Pre-season friendlies were organised with Bayern Munich Frauen, Wolfsburg Frauen and Barcelona Femeni, with Arsenal losing to each side 1-0, 3-2 and 5-2 respectively.

“It’s been done on purpose, we want to play against the best teams and we can only know where we’re at by playing against them,” the Australian explained at the time. In his final months as Arsenal Women head coach this year, he also declared Champions League qualification should be the base level achievement for the club, with hopes they would push further after his departure this summer.

Jonas Eidevall’s opening months in charge have been nothing short of exceptional. Ahead of this season’s European bow, his side had won nine out of nine competitive games and, most importantly, had proven they could compete directly with their Women’s Super League rivals. They hit the ground running at the Emirates Stadium against Chelsea Women on opening day and carried their momentum to Meadow Park to take advantage of Manchester City Women’s shortcomings.

While there was excitement about their return to Europe’s elite competition, the understanding that Arsenal Women are still a way off the continent’s leading clubs was made clear at the Estadi Johan Cruyff.

Although it was not until the half-hour mark when Barcelona opened the scoring, their dominance was evident from the very early stages of the game.

The technical superiority was always going to arise during the game, the standout moment coming in the 65th minute when six sharp passes between four Barcelona players in five seconds bypassed four Arsenal midfielders. Aside from these moments of brilliance, however, the intensity of Jonatan Giraldez’s side’s defensive approach showed Eidevall and his players that they were facing one of the most complete teams in Europe.

Asisat Oshoala’s goal, assist and shot which led to Mariona Caldentey’s opener will rightly get most of the attention but, within minutes of the game kicking off, she was pressing, putting Manuela Zinsberger under pressure. The pressure applied at the top of the pitch allowed it to be replicated further back, which meant even if Arsenal were able to play through the first wave, they had another set of challenges to overcome before posing a true threat.

Within seven minutes of each other, Katie McCabe and Vivianne Miedema were caught offside mere yards inside the Barcelona half as a result. Condensing the pitch to the point where their back four rested on halfway, the Catalans suffocated Arsenal out of the first half.

Undoubtedly, there is quality in the Arsenal squad to aim to compete in Europe. That was most evident when Nikita Parris and Tobin Heath came off the bench, adding more belief to the attack with runs and passes in behind. The fact the upturn came from these two, who have the Women’s Champions League, the Women’s World Cup twice and the Olympics twice between them, is not a surprise, but also speaks to where this Arsenal team currently are.

Mana Iwabuchi (another World Cup winner with Japan), also adds that element of experience, but for core members of the current squad, they have been going through these high-pressure moments for the first time together. Leah Williamson, McCabe, Beth Mead and Miedema were all learning during the Montemurro years and will continue to do so under Eidevall. Jordan Nobbs, Kim Little and Jen Beattie will be closer to Parris, Heath and Iwabuchi in regards to experience, but collective experiences will still need to be built.

Qualifying for Europe is one thing, competing until the end of the season for a league title is a step up and then taking the fight to Europe’s elite is another level altogether.

Barcelona did not suddenly wake up as Women’s Champions League winners. The clarity displayed by them against Arsenal was also evident in last season’s final against Chelsea, after which The Athletic’s Charlotte Harpur highlighted that “of the 25 players in the Barcelona squad, 20 are Spanish and nine have risen through the ranks of the club’s La Masia academy” as well as the fact they lost their first Champions League final 4-1 to Lyon in 2019.

There was always still going to be work to do to push Arsenal further, Eidevall himself was under no illusions of that. When asked if he thought England’s WSL was the strongest league in the world before playing Manchester City last month, he admitted he felt it would be “arrogant” to say that with no English clubs/based-players dominating Europe.

Despite there still being work to do, the result at Barcelona does not diminish the work already done. The action taken in the summer both in on and off-pitch investment has already paid dividends and will continue to do so, as will the foresight of Eidevall’s predecessor, who set about his “succession planning” well before it was apparent he would be leaving.

“I really think Joe (Montemurro) has left me and the rest (of the staff) here with a really good, strong foundation to take the club and team further, so big compliments to the work Joe has done,” the current Arsenal head coach said before facing Barcelona.

“I think too often that’s the things you don’t judge a coach or a manager on. One thing is the short term, another thing is to see where the club is at when the manager is leaving and for me, that’s always a sign of the really great managers.”

(Top photo: Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

Art de Roché began covering Arsenal for football.london in 2019 as a trainee club writer. Beforehand, he covered the Under-23s and Women's team on a freelance basis for the Islington Gazette, having gained experience with Sky Sports News and The Independent. Follow Art on Twitter @ArtdeRoche