They led Arsenal to Champions League glory. Now Matildas trio are out to knock Chelsea off their perch

2 weeks ago 5

It has been four months since Arsenal won the Women’s Champions League final, and it almost feels too late to congratulate Steph Catley. “Oh no,” she says. “I will accept all of those congratulations.”

Catley understands four months isn’t a long time in relative terms. She probably hasn’t sat down and calculated that four months goes 54 times into 18 years, which is how long ago the team last won the prestigious continental trophy.

But the incumbent Matildas captain has met members of the celebrated 2006-07 squad which claimed that unprecedented quadruple (Arsenal remain the only English club to win the WCL). And she has been at the club long enough to have come as close as a semi-final, and also as far away as being knocked out in the first qualifying round – a salty seasoning no fresh 2023 World Cup wound needs.

“I know how hard it is to do well in the Champions League, and I know how prestigious it is,” Catley says over a video call from London, pulling on a pair of boots ready for a photoshoot. “So for us to go and do it, the way that we did it as well, it’s going to be something etched in history.”

In another sense, four months can also be a long time. Since May 24, when Catley’s commanding backline presence helped keep Barcelona scoreless in Lisbon (and helped her to a Ballon d’Or nomination), an entire off-season has come and gone.

Crammed into it has been another Euros triumph for Arsenal’s several England internationals. There has been the overdue appointment of a permanent Matildas coach for Catley and fellow Australian Gunners Caitlin Foord and Kyra Cooney-Cross. Joe Montemurro has overseen his first experimental international window and attended the draw for March’s home Women’s Asian Cup.

Matildas Kyra Cooney-Cross, Caitlin Foord and Steph Catley are gunning for the WSL title with Arsenal.

And back in North London there has been Arsenal’s shrewd recruitment and retention, headlined by Canada forward Olivia Smith’s (since-surpassed) world-record £1 million ($2.05m) transfer from Liverpool, the re-signing of the prolific Alessia Russo and fellow forward Chloe Kelly making permanent her loan move from Manchester City.

“It does feel like a long time ago,” says Foord, who also started in the final and played effectively the whole game. “Just because, literally, we played the game, we went away to camp and then some of the girls went to the Euros, some of us had an off-season, and then we kind of just came back together and it’s a new season. So it felt like it just happened and then it was gone.”

“But there’s still definitely reminders every day, and here at the club it’s all over the walls and stuff like that, so you still pinch yourself that it did actually happen. It was just insane. And it was a fun ride after the game as well, even though it was short and sweet.”

Foord is referring to the post-game party in Lisbon that continued into the early hours of the following morning, took in a flight back to London for the winner’s parade and involved many pairs of sunglasses.

Arsenal’s Australian contingent of Cooney-Cross, Caitlin Foord and Steph Catley celebrating their Champions League final win.

“If you win the Champions League,” she continues, “you’re definitely going to make the most of it, which we did. We really wanted to put our hands on a trophy, and once all the other ones were out of the picture it was the full focus was on the Champions League. And I mean, if you asked me at the start of the season, you can win the Champions League and nothing else, I would’ve taken that.”

Would she take it over winning the Asian Cup on home soil? It feels almost like a trick question, but her answer makes perfect sense. “I think, for me, it’s on par,” she says, before explaining how Australia have “been so close” (2023 World Cup?), “probably should have done better in moments” (2024 Olympics? 2022 Asian Cup?).

She also adds they “can’t really let that opportunity slip”, and this is where the past informs the future. Australians are keenly aware of the Matildas’ quest for that elusive major trophy, and equally aware squad members are dotted around the world – including 13 in the English Women’s Super League – with one eye on the international prize.

For the Aussies at the Emirates, Foord’s words carry a double meaning. Because with great success comes great expectations, and that means finally challenging domestically. None of the trio was around the last time the club won the WSL. Since 2018-19 (under Montemurro, of all people) it’s been Chelsea and Chelsea only, and Arsenal cannot for the life of them seem to knock the Blues off their perch.

Arsenal manager Renee Slegers lifts the Women’s Champions League trophy at the Emirates with her hard-celebrating team.

The past six years have brought four third-place finishes and two runners-up, including last season, and the question is whether such an extraordinary end to 2024-25 has effected enough of a psychological rewiring.

They have the depth now, to the point even cemented starter Foord, who seems to get better every year, fully anticipates to “have someone breathing down your neck” (in a healthy competition sort of way).

It also shows in how Catley, the long-time left-back who became a central defensive fixture alongside currently injured England captain Leah Williamson (the only other centre-back ever shortlisted for the Ballon d’Or Feminin), has opened the season partnering assured teenager Katie Reid ahead of the higher-profile Lotte Wubben-Moy or Laia Codina.

Midfielder Cooney-Cross, meanwhile, had 19 WSL outings including 10 starts last season but is still biding her time behind Kim Little and co.

Joe Montemurro with the 2018–19 Women’s Super League trophy.

They also have the manager in Renee Slegers, the 36-year-old Dutch assistant-turned-interim-turned-permanent-appointment who transformed their fortunes last season after the departure of predecessor Jonas Eidevall, and is duly on the shortlist for Ballon d’Or women’s coach of the year.

Catley is already on the record stating there are “no excuses”, and both she and Foord cite a previous tendency to drop points in regulation fixtures that have come back to haunt them on the table (Foord recalls the home draw with Everton in October 2024 as “one of those days”).

That has not been an issue in the opening two fixtures, with persuasive 4-1 and 5-1 results against newcomers London City Lionesses and West Ham respectively. Sunday’s trip to Manchester United should provide another revealing barometer.

The first meeting with Chelsea comes at home on November 8, and this is where another conflicting club-country force re-enters the equation: Sam Kerr.

The Matildas captain and striker made her return to the pitch last weekend, coming off the bench for a cameo against Aston Villa everyone should probably have guessed would feature her 100th club goal. The comeback was almost two years in the making, having done her ACL back in January 2024, and offered every indication the 32-year-old can yet return to the redoubtable pre-injury model who scored that World Cup semi-final wonder strike against England in Sydney.

“It’s been a long journey for her getting to this point,” says Catley. “But honestly, the way she’s handled it, she’s kept her head on the entire time. She’s not let it beat her down or ever, it’s never felt like she’s not going to come back or, yeah, she’s been so positive about all of it.

“I didn’t watch the game, but I saw as soon as she got subbed on, and then the next update I saw was that she’d scored and I was like, ‘Classic, just completely her style to go and do that’. As her friend and her Matildas teammate, it was the best thing to see. I texted her the game before [against Manchester City] saying, ‘Congrats on being back, can’t wait to see you back out there’.

“And she was like, ‘I dunno what’s going to happen’, and she didn’t get on. And then this game she got on and she scores. Just an amazing feeling for her and for all of us who have been watching this journey. You want to see the best players in the world out there, and she’s the best in the world.

“And she’s our national team captain, and we can’t wait to have her back. The league is better with her in it. I mean, hopefully she’s not scoring against us, but hopefully scoring lots for the national team.”

That could be as soon as next month, when the Matildas play Wales in Cardiff, and then England in Derby for the first time since that shattering 3-1 defeat at Accor Stadium denied Australia a home final. The next milestone for Kerr will be her return to the international fray, against either Wales in Cardiff on October 25 or England in Derby three days later.

The significance of the latter is not lost on Catley and her England teammates. “We’ve started chatting about it a little bit now,” she says. “But not too much.”

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