Sonia Bompastor promised in her programme notes that her team would put everything on the line to fight their way back into this Champions League tie – and they did this and more.
Never would she have presumed, though, that she would be unable to watch her team limp off down the tunnel at the final whistle, having been shown her marching orders moments earlier.
Bompastor prides herself on respect in the women’s game: respecting the opposition, respecting the referees. She is not quite at the place of respecting the ball yet, but she does not need to go far to find pointers on this.
That is why the final few minutes of this chaotic, gripping game will have come as such a shock to those who have spent more than five minutes near the composed, yet undoubtedly competitive, young French coach, as she headed down the tunnel with a red card in her rear-view mirror.
Yet there is plenty of context – and it is one which begins in the first leg of this attritional tie.
Arsenal were two goals up at the Emirates when Veerle Buurman pulled one back at the end of the first half. Yet the referee blew her whistle to rule it out, deciding that Buurman had pushed her defender. VAR checked the call, and the goal was struck off. It was undoubtedly harsh, and Bompastor fumed at the decision after the match.
Bompastor was shown two yellow cards after the Chelsea coach fumed over the referee’s decision to wave away a foul on Alyssa Thompson
Replays showed that McCabe had pulled Thompson’s hair after Chelsea had scored – something she said afterwards was not intentional – and the referee waved play on
‘You need to respect the players. They work hard every week to put a good performance on the pitch. For sure, the first goal is a goal. I don’t see, with the VAR, how you can disallow that goal,’ she said.
The general consensus was in support of Bompastor, with Steph Houghton calling the decision ‘outrageous’, while ex-striker Ellen White said the referee had rushed to blow her whistle, urging officials to show more composure.
Here at Stamford Bridge under the lights, a similar moment arose.
After pulling a goal back to bring the deficit to one in stoppage time, Chelsea had their tails up. Alyssa Thompson then charged towards the Arsenal penalty area when she was brought down by Katie McCabe. Replays showed that McCabe had pulled Thompson’s hair – something she said afterwards was not intentional – and the referee waved play on.
This was the moment that steam began to pour out of Bompastor’s ears. She shouted and gesticulated at the assistant referee and the fourth official. Referee Frida Klarlund, alert to the commotion, sprinted over to the touchline and brandished a yellow card. It did not cool Bompastor down, and moments later she saw a second yellow and then red.
‘In the end I’m the one who received a red card, but it should be the Arsenal player who received a red card,’ she said. ‘What is the VAR doing in these games? If we have the VAR, I don’t understand why they’re not checking it. It’s not good enough.
‘We lost the game in the first leg and we didn’t score enough today, that’s why we haven’t qualified. But tonight we are speaking too much about the referees, and that was the case last week.
It was a scrappy, attritional affair: the holders desperate to retain their crown of all crowns
‘Why are these referees coming into these games after what happened in the first leg? I don’t think it’s good enough. For me the intention is clear – she tried to pull her hair.’
What is clear from these latest episodes is that, until the standard of refereeing improves, the ‘what ifs’ will continue to plague the women’s game. In both moments, it felt as though the momentum of the tie could genuinely have shifted, and that is a shame.
Because, in more ways than one, Arsenal deserved this. In the first leg they were the more clinical side, and here in west London they fought valiantly to keep Chelsea at bay for more than 90 minutes.
It was a scrappy, attritional affair: the holders desperate to retain their crown of all crowns; the perennial runners-up loath to see yet another season pass them by without getting their hands on their most coveted prize.
Lotte Wubben-Moy said in the build-up that she was ‘made’ for games like this, and she was superb in the heart of the Arsenal defence.
The game was threatening to boil over even before Bompastor was sent off. Lauren James had left a leg in after being brought down by McCabe and was fortunate to escape with only a yellow. Moments later, the two came together again, with the fiery Irish right-back putting her arms around James in an attempt to calm her down.
Arsenal thought they had sealed it when Stina Blackstenius found the back of the net in the 79th minute, but the Swede was deemed to have been offside in the build-up, and the Stamford Bridge crowd sought to use the reprieve to inspire their beleaguered side.
Moments later, James had the better of Beth Mead and belted a shot from the edge of the penalty area, but Daphne van Domselaar managed to get her fingertips to it. Sam Kerr was waiting to pounce, only to see her effort come back off the post.
Van Domselaar came to the rescue again minutes later, producing a world-class fingertip save to tip Sjoeke Nusken’s header onto the post before scrambling it away to safety.
Nusken gave a late glimmer of hope to the hosts when she bundled the ball over the line in the 94th minute, but by then the rest, as we know, had descended into chaos.
Yet Arsenal march on. They face Wolfsburg or Lyon in the semi-final.
They are also the only English side left in the competition, with pressure mounting on Manchester United Women’s manager Marc Skinner after his side were knocked out by Bayern Munich.
Earlier in the day, Manchester United were knocked out by Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena
The result leaves United with no silverware to play for this season, having already exited the FA Cup in the fifth round and lost last month’s League Cup final. They now sit 11 points behind league leaders Manchester City with just three games remaining.
Melvine Malard’s early strike hauled United back into the quarter-final tie, but their profligacy after a dominant first half proved costly.
After the break, the hosts took control. Glodis Viggosdottir restored Bayern’s lead in the 80th minute before Linda Dallmann sealed the result four minutes later, bringing United’s debut Champions League campaign to a painful end.
With a smaller squad than rivals such as City, Arsenal and Chelsea, United’s ability to compete with the elite has again been called into question.
Suddenly, after so much optimism just over a month ago, it is a season soured for the Reds, who have now lost three consecutive games.
‘Bayern rested seven (players) at the weekend and then came into this game fresh. You could see energy was the difference. I’m not going to make excuses, you could see it,’ Skinner said.
‘The one disappointment I have from this is that, if we had our freshness and our fit players, we could have gone toe-to-toe with them and really changed the second half.’
