LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 26: Mariona Caldentey of Arsenal celebrates scoring her team’s second goal … More with team mates during the UEFA Women’s Champions League Quarter Finals Second Leg match between Arsenal FC and Real Madrid CF at Emirates Stadium on March 26, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Alex Burstow/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
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Arsenal Women completed a staggering comeback against Real Madrid in the second leg of the UEFA Women’s Champions League to reach an eighth semi-final.
Leading 2-0 from the first leg last week in Madrid, Las Blancas could not see out the job at the Emirates Stadium in London. After a first half in which they dominated possession but failed to test Real Madrid goalkeeper Misa, Arsenal stormed out of the blocks in the second half. Chloe Kelly, their January signing from Manchester City, produced two copybook right-wing crosses which produced two quickfire goals for Alessia Russo and Mariona Caldentey.
With the atmosphere at the Emirates Stadium now at fever pitch it just took another ten minutes for Russo to slash home a third goal after Madrid failed to deal with a Katie McCabe free kick. Russo twice thought she had completed a hat-trick, first sliding home a Frida Maanum cross, then having a second goal disallowed at the end for offside.
Arsenal’s English striker #23 Alessia Russo reacts after her shot was saved during the UEFA Women’s … More Champions League quarter-final second leg football match between Arsenal and Real Madrid, at the Emirates Stadium in north London on March 26, 2025. (Photo by Adrian Dennis / AFP) (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)
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The two goals take Russo’s total for the season to 16, making it the best goalscoring season of her career. She has now also scored six goals in the UEFA Women’s Champions League this season making her the joint leading goalscorer in the competition ahead of Pernille Harder of FC Bayern who went out to Lyon earlier today.
The match was watched by a crowd of 22,517 at the Emirates Stadium, a new record for a UEFA Women’s Champions League quarter-final in England surpassing the 21,307 who were at the ground two years ago to witness Arsenal overturn a first leg deficit against FC Bayern. It is also by far the largest attendance of the eight quarter-final ties across Europe.
In overturning the 2-0 defeat in the first leg, Arsenal has become the first team to come back from a two-goal deficit in the UEFA Women’s Champions League in seven years. The last team to achieve this was FC Barcelona in September 2018 who won the second leg of their Round 1 tie 3-0 against BIIK Kazygurt after losing 3-1 in Kazakhstan.
Speaking to the media ahead of the game, Arsenal’s Leah Williamson believed the memories of a similar comeback in the competition two years ago would serve her team well. “The experience of overturning the last quarter-final against Bayern Munich, I think that comes in handy for anybody that played in that game.”
LONDON COLNEY, ENGLAND – MARCH 25: Leah Williamson of Arsenal during the Arsenal Press Conference at … More Sobha Realty Training Centre on March 25, 2025 in London Colney, England. (Photo by David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Arsenal FC via Getty Images
“I think that was a great memory. Good things happen in football, bad things happen in football. When the good things happen, you keep them in your pocket – just as much as the bad – but you call on them when you need them. Anybody who was involved in that game will take confidence from that, knowing that we know how to do it almost in an identical situation.”
No team in Europe has reached more Women’s Champions League quarter-finals than Arsenal. However, from sixteen appearances at this stage, they have only turned eight of them into semi-finals and one into a final. They remain the only English side to win the competition, back in 2007.
Arsenal will now take on eight-time winners of the competition Olympique Lyonnais in the semi-finals next month with the first leg to be played at the Emirates Stadium on April 19/20.
