golden blonde¹

ajax (h)

over the next two days, there was rarely time for breaks. everyone was locked in and ready to face ajax on the 20th. they would be playing more cautiously this time around, having two pivots. despite this fact, elena remained on the bench.

elena understood the midfield talent here at arsenal. she thought frida deserved to be starting when she first saw her play; she'd be starting at most clubs in the world. even leaving out jordan nobbs in your starting lineup seemed like blasphemy a few years ago. (elena had done her research on the legendary midfielder when she first arrived).

when there's talent such as vivianne miedema, kim little, and lia wälti, elena would be lucky to start any game this season. still, it would mean more minutes off the bench compared to barcelona's midfield.

jonas had decided to make three changes to the line up though. noelle is in for laura, steph replaces katie. new signing that came earlier in preseason in lina hurtig replaces caitlin. elena's quite surprised that ajax don't have any international talent outside of the dutch players.

"they're attacking talent is immense. they're not going to roll over. to win, we have to fight for it, alright?" jonas says in the locker room. he gets a couple of determined looks from his players.

elena's sat on the bench beside caitlin and frida, watching the game intensely. they had known of ajax's forward line being good, but this press was almost too high. their defenders and midfielders had such a big gap in between them. arsenal had the ball stuck in midfield, leaving stina stranded up top.

they're losing the ball too soon.

it's only been four minutes in and victoria pelova gets a shot off inside the box. one which manu has to save.

"what happened to pressing at the right times?" caitlin says, watching noelle send a ball up the right side.

"now is not the right time." elena grumbles as lina loses the ball far too easily. noelle recovers though and sends a ball into the box towards stina.

the other pelova sister, fleur, comes off her line to stop it.

"she's going to be trouble." frida comments.

noelle was at least having a good game so far. she had found a lot of space down the right hand side and she was creating chances for the team. all of them however, the ajax defense took care of easily.

"descuidat." elena shakes her head as the midfield concedes a throw in. the number 10 throws it to 15 who makes a run across the left hand side. she gets a cross into the box and it ends up at the feet of the person viv explicitly said not to leave open in the box.

they were 1 nil down, and it was only the 17th minute.

in the twentieth minute, lina is brought down near the edge of the box. beth takes the free kick, aiming for goal. pelova must have seen it from a mile away. she easily saves it and rolls it toward her defender.

the goal from ajax must have woken the midfield up. the passes connect, and it results in a corner. elena leaps off of her seat when she sees rafa head it toward goal, but it ends up hitting the cross bar with a loud clang.

stina gets her foot on the rebound, and finally arsenal have something to celebrate.

1 all.

the goal switches the momentum for the team, they start pressing more aggressively on the goalkeeper, and viv closes down on one of her clearances. a deflection sees it out for a corner, but they don't make anything out of it.

elena can hear leah shout to her fellow defenders to keep it up; if she were on the field, it'd definitely make her feel more confident.

her confidence would vanish quickly though because leuchter is steamrolling through their defense far too easily. elena holds her breath as she fires off a shot; luckily it's straight at manu.