Arsenal enjoyed one of their most famous victories in the UEFA Women’s Champions League last night as they defeated European champions Lyon 5-1 at the Groupama Stadium.
Victories against European football’s elite have been in short supply in recent times but The Gunners re-wrote the history books as they demolished an ultra-consistent Lyon side on their own turf.
Arsenal went to France with a game plan and they executed it perfectly. When speaking in the post-match press conference, head coach Eidevall said that his side were rewarded for doing things right.
“We were very effective tonight but as I told the players after, I think they worked extremely hard to carry out the game plan both in offence and in defence,” Eidevall said. “When you do that, sometimes these things happen.
“Of course, it’s a special night – we know that as well. I think it was a well-deserved win but of course, 5-1 is an unexpected result against a very, very strong team, so I’m very happy about that.
“I think I’ve spoken about this before; you don’t always get rewarded for doing all the right things in football but tonight we got rewarded and I think that will increase the likelihood of doing the right things again in the future.”
Lyon went into the game with a whole host of absentees, their injury list running into double figures. Eidevall did not want that fact to cloud his side’s good performance.
He said “Yeah, I’d rather not speak about the players on the other side who didn’t play tonight. I can only speak on behalf of my team, Arsenal, and like I said, I think we had a really, really strong performance, both on and off the ball. It is the strongest performance that I have seen us do, so we played our part in this becoming a victory and getting the result.”
Arsenal continue their involvement in this season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage with a home fixture against FC Zürich next Thursday.