Mariona Caldentey scored a superb objective when Arsenal amazed Lyon during the return match of their semi-final of the League of Women’s Champions on Sunday, a 4-1 victory in France which won the English club until the final next month against Barcelona. Arsenal had to reverse a deficit of 2-1 after the first stage of the last confrontation against the eight record winners of the Champions League, and they accumulated the link on the total via the first goal of the goalkeeper Christian Endler. The Caldentey Spain star then did 2-0 for Arsenal during the day to put them forward overall as a first half, and visitors fled with the tie after the break.
Alessio Russo scored only 27 seconds after restarting and Caitlin Foord jumped on a defensive sheet Calamite to obtain the fourth goal from Arsenal.
Melchie Dumornay, who scored the Lyon winner in the first leg last week, withdrew one for Lyon, but it was too little late for them when Arsenal held the time to take the 5-3 draw on the total.
Arsenal, which is second in the super league of English women behind Chelsea, will now face Barcelona in the final in Lisbon on May 24.
The Catalans qualified earlier Sunday with a 4-1 victory in Chelsea sealing a triumph of aggregation 8-2.
Barcelona will be the overwhelming favorites as they go to the final to win the trophy for the third consecutive year and the fourth time in the general classification.
First final in 18 years
Arsenal won the competition in 2007 when it was still known as the UEFA female cup, but they have now been in their first final since then.
It is a remarkable achievement against a team that had won all the matches of the competition this season when arriving at the second stage, and which aimed for its eighth appearance in the past 10 years.
Lyon held the advantage entering the return to their own fans at the Groupama stadium, which was far from being full for the occasion.
They also returned Captain Wendie Renard after an injury and started in central defense when the French international made his 500th appearance for the club.
However, Lyon has never really recovered from a terrible start when they were late in the five minutes in bizarre circumstances.
Damaris Egurrola tried to postpone a corner of a pressure arsenal in his own six -meter box, but only managed to play the Ballon of the Endler goalkeeper and put visitors in front of the day.
Caldentey then obtained the second crucial to the right at the end of the opening half-time, the former Barcelona player collecting a layoff of Russo and drawing high in the net from the edge of the area.
This meant that Arsenal now kept his head tied, and they went further on the start in the second half while England International Russo ended up and fired.
There was then no way to return to Lyon when Arsenal obtained his fourth at 63 minutes, while Vanessa Gilles slipped during the control of a short pass by endler, allowing the Australian star Foord to move forward and beat the goalkeeper.
Dumornay reduced the deficit in the last 10 minutes, but Lyon needed two additional goals to level the equality again and Arsenal maintained.
AS / BSP
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