Real Madrid’s Caroline Weir scored a fantastic goal to put her side 1-0 up against Arsenal in the UEFA Women’s Champions League – but ended up on the losing side after an Alessia Russo double gave the hosts victory.
And Weir – a former Arsenal player herself – admitted she was a “little bit disappointed” that her team couldn’t come away with something from the match at Meadow Park.
“[It was] nice to score but one goal isn’t really enough,” she told Disney+ afterwards. “We needed a bit more in the second half.”
She added: “I think we played well but it wasn’t quite enough tonight, but against a top team like Arsenal, it’s always going to be difficult.”
Asked what she thought swung the balance of a close match, she replied: “They came out really aggressive in the second half, in the wide areas especially, on the transition we were always dangerous, but we didn’t quite take our chances. We had a few half-chances and you don’t get many of them. You need to take them and unfortunately we didn’t do that tonight.”
Caroline Weir: The margins are so small
But the 30-year-old could take some positives – especially from the new format of the competition this season.
“It’s really exciting as players,” she said. “Every game is so different, we’re playing top teams every single time in this new format. Points, whether that’s win or draw, that’s so important in the league table.
“As players, I’m enjoying it. It’s cool to play different teams. Tough games, every game is so tough, but as a player, it’s exciting.”
And although this defeat follows a 4-0 loss at the hands of a rampant Barcelona last weekend, Weir hopes Real Madrid will be ready to get back on track in their next Champions League match. They face Wolfsburg at home and then travel to Twente next month.
“We’ve been playing well the last couple of weeks, obviously the weekend we didn’t get a result, today we didn’t get a result, but the performances are there, it’s just about the consistency, and it’s the margins, they’re so small at this level, so we need to try and capitalise on that a little bit more.
“And we’ll try and do that against Wolfsburg.”
