Olympique Lyonnais, eight-time winners of the UEFA Women’s Champions League, will take to the Emirates Stadium this afternoon for the first leg of an enthralling semi-final clash, which sees them come up against Arsenal at 12:30 BST [13:30 CEST] live on TNT Sports and DAZN.
Ahead of the clash, US captain and Lyon midfielder Lindsey Heaps reflected on her side’s pedigree in the competition, explaining that “that gives you a bit of extra confidence but more so, [you’re] going into these games and you know what they’re about.”
“You could think it’s going to go one way and it goes the other and you have to make adjustments, mid game. It’s almost like a tournament, a World Cup or an Olympics. You might be expecting something and you get something completely different and that’s when you see the best teams come out and they’re able to adjust. Being able to play and come out of it on top, so that’s why it was the greatest feeling in the world to win it and also the worst feeling in the world to lose it.”
The 30-year-old praised the quality of Arsenal’s individual talent and the collective strength of the squad, affirming that fans should expect a great match when you “have two great teams that love to have the ball and love to play, but also have played in really big game and know what’s at stake as well.”
“So I think for a viewer, this is what you want to see. And for a player, this is what you want to play in. For us, we really respect the opponent. We know we’re going to play at the Emirates with a really special fan base. But it is about us, and we remember that. We focus on Lyon and what we want to do and how we want to play, but just know what their threats are and how they could hurt us as well.”
While Arsenal remain the only English side to have ever won the UEFA Women’s Champions League, albeit under its former guise of the UEFA Women’s Cup, Lyon are serial winners – they boast a record-breaking eight titles. Their key to success?
“Standards, [the] expectations of this club. I think people always just expect to see Lyon in the further stages of the Champions League,” Heaps explained in the buildup to Saturday’s clash, “but the game has gotten so much more difficult. Teams have gotten so much more quality so much better and just making the game so hard. We have to continue to grow. We have to continue to raise our standards and expectations every single day.”
“I think that’s why Lyon has always been on the forefront of that and been consistently at the top and playing in these types of games. But it’s not easy. It’s really not. I think you look back at our quarter final with Bayern, that is a quality team and a really difficult game. They caused so many problems for us as well, and I’m really proud of the way that we played and came out of that, especially. It’s a hard thing to describe.”
But while being the best comes with significant pressure to uphold that reputation, Heaps assured that “the best teams in the world [and] the best players in the world thrive on pressure. I think pressure is an absolute privilege to be playing in high-stake games, to be playing with pressure like this.”
“That is an absolute privilege, and so to own that and to accept that and to feel that, it’s the best thing in the world. You don’t want to regret not giving your all and not putting everything into those kinds of games. So feel that pressure and accept it. But I think that’s why we remain one of the best teams in the world because you thrive in it and all these players thrive in it.”
Arsenal host Olympique Lyonnais in the first leg of their UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final at Emirates Stadium on Saturday 19 April, with kick-off at 12:30 BST [13:30 CEST].