The Halfway Line heard from Arsenal’s Player of the Match, Caitlin Foord, after she netted four goals during the Gunners‘ emphatic 6-0 win over Rangers FC, which saw Jonas Eidevall’s side book their ticket to Saturdays mini-tournament final against Rosenborg.

The opening round of the UEFA Women’s Champions League qualification may have begun perfectly for the London club, but they are not out of the woods just yet.

“I had fun” laughed the winger, match ball in hand, when she spoke to the press following the triumph. Foord was full of praise for her Arsenal teammates, highlighting “The type of players we have on the ball that can put in crosses like that,” and largely crediting her performance to those who came in with the assists.

Striking from the back post more than once on this occasion, the Australian explained the extent to which this was part of the night’s preparation. She said, “We spoke about the opposite winger getting into the box to add that extra number into the box when we get crosses in. We have done that a lot tonight. We spoke about that at half-time, about how much space there is when the ball comes back into the pocket. I just knew if the ball came in to get on the end of it.”

The fixture saw some wonderful work going on between Foord and her fellow attacker, Mariona Caldentey. The two could frequently be found switching things up by swapping sides. The winger explained, “With Mariona being able to play on the right, it just flowed to stay if we ended up on the other side. I think it worked out nicely to interchange with her and to build new connections on the right. I am used to being on the left, I am familiar there, it was just about building connections with the players on that side.”

Having made an early exit from last year’s tournament, and now subsequently determined to make their 2024/25 campaign different, Foord affirmed “I don’t think we will be complacent, it is still pretty firmly in our minds what happened last season and we don’t want it to happen again.”

Foord touched on the significance of Arsenal’s preseason endeavours, and how they helped successfully prepare the side for their return to competitive football. The forward elaborated, “It didn’t work out the way we wanted it to last year, we’ve had more time this time to prepare for this game and have those two games in the U.S. We lost to Chelsea out there but this was the important game, it was important to have those games to build towards this one and for Saturday.”

Prepared for Saturday evening’s match to be a challenging one after a breezy start to the competition on Wednesday, Foord acknowledged “For Rosenborg to beat Atlético, that is a tough game so they obviously played really well. We are looking forward to it.”

Rosenborg clawed their way back to beat Atlético Madrid on penalties just hours before Arsenal’s own match kicked off. Despite knowing they would (hopefully) be facing the winner of the earlier fixture, the Gunners were zoomed in on the task at hand, concentrating on what they could control. Foord maintained “It was full focus on our game, but I am sure we will see in the next couple of days the footage.”