In the aftermath of Arsenal’s crushing 5-4 mixture defeat to Wolfsburg to go out the Women’s Champions League on the semi-final degree, Jonas Eidevall was once requested about his crew’s probabilities within the match subsequent season.
“I think first we need to try to qualify for the competition next season,” he mentioned matter-of-factly. “It is a difficult WSL and we’re in a difficult state of affairs, we need to get our ft and heads again this as a result of we’re hurting after this night. But on Friday we’ve a in reality vital recreation in opposition to a Leicester crew who’ve in reality picked themselves up.”
He is right. It would be extremely presumptuous to assume that Arsenal will be in the Champions League next season. Five points separate the Gunners, who sit outside the three Champions League spots in fourth, and Chelsea in third. Both London teams have two games in hand over league leaders Manchester United and second-place Manchester City. They are nine and six points ahead of Arsenal.
Meanwhile, Arsenal’s injury crisis continues. Thursday’s news about Laura Wienroither’s ACL rupture takes the team’s tally to four of the destabilizing injuries in under six months. How bad then would missing out on Champions League football be for the Gunners?
The value of participating in the UWCL is clear. Since the introduction of the 16-team group stage for the 2021–22 season it has been ramped up with each of the 16 teams receiving €400,000 (£350,000) and the winner of the tournament earning up to €1.4m.
There is literal value there and, while it is a small amount of money in the context of clubs of the scale of Arsenal, it is significant compared with the budgets for women’s football teams.
However, of even greater significance is the non-financial value of competing in Europe’s premier competition. Arsenal have used the Champions League to help build the fanbase of the women’s team. This season, the three group stage matches played at home were included as part of a package of six games to be played at the Emirates Stadium that could be added on to men’s team season-ticket holders.
Crowds started off small for the midweek fixtures, dwarfed by the WSL games at the stadium, but the momentum of the team in the latter stages of the tournament meant a record crowd of 60,063 for a women’s club game in England watched the sold-out second leg against Wolfsburg.
Without Champions League football, the momentum Arsenal have managed to build off the pitch will take a hit unless the club can transfer that excitement into more domestic fixtures.
There will be an impact on the squad as well. Wienroither joined Leah Williamson as the latest player in the treatment room with an ACL rupture, following Vivianne Miedema and Beth Mead, who suffered the same injury toward the end of 2022. Meanwhile, Caitlin Foord remains absent with a hamstring problem and Kim Little has a knee injury that will keep her out for the remainder of the season.
Despite having coped remarkably well with the ever-growing injury list and players likely to return at different stages of next season, Arsenal will have to be active in the transfer window to remain competitive. Without Champions League football that becomes harder. The best players want to play in the Champions League and a season outside the tournament will give those in it an edge in the transfer market.
That said, Arsenal’s progress to the semi-finals this term, against the odds and with the team depleted, has been hugely impressive. That, alongside the work being done off the pitch to fill the Emirates Stadium and build an atmosphere at games, makes Arsenal hugely attractive.
If they do miss out on Champions League football there could be a small silver lining to a very dark cloud in that it would be a chance to strengthen and to get players back from injury without a fixture pile-up. That would probably make the push to get back into the top three and challenge for the league title a little easier. Convincing incoming players that it will be worth the wait will be the hard part.
Even finishing third and entering Champions League qualifying would not be ideal, with those games being played 16 days after the World Cup final. Manchester City suffered the consequences of a short turnaround after last summer’s Euros, with their squad laden with England players failing to reach the group stage after a 1-0 defeat to Real Madrid.
“That displays how dangerous the calendar is,” said Eidevall. “We want to try to finish as high as possible in the table, we want to try to go into the Champions League and we need to do whatever is necessary to get there.
“But it highlights a very important issue. You want to protect players and you want to have importance of the World Cup and the Champions League but it is impossible for the clubs who are going to play in that playoff round.”