She knows every pass they’ll make – but Caldentey must forget her Barça past as Arsenal prepare for Women’s Champions League final | OneFootball

Less than a year has passed since Mariona Caldentey arrived in North London, and yet the midfielder feels part of the furniture already. At no point has she looked like a player who might need time to come to terms with a new team, a new league and a new country – and that speaks volumes about her quality.

Caldentey has taken to Arsenal like a duck to water. Deployed in a number of positions by Jonas Eidevall and then Renée Slegers, the Gunners have eagerly tapped into her versatility – and now, she’s preparing to play a crucial role as the Londoners take on their toughest challenge yet.

The UEFA Women’s Champions League is the pinnacle of women’s club football in Europe. It is the prize that every player sets their eyes upon at the start of the season, and it is the prize that attracts the most attention from the media and fans alike. But unlike most of the Arsenal squad, Caldentey has already lifted that prestigious trophy: three times, in fact.

This year’s final, to be held at Lisbon’s Estádio José Alvalade this Saturday [17:00 BST, 18:00 CEST], poses a challenge unlike any she has ever faced before. For the first time since signing for Arsenal, Caldentey will come up against FC Barcelona – the side with whom she won those three UWCL titles over a 10-year stint.

But at the end of the 2023/24 season, described by Sport’s Maria Tikas as “her best season with Barça,”, Caldentey made the decision to uproot. “There isn’t another footballer like her,” Tikas wrote following the Catalan giants’ triumph in Bilbao, “and Barça are going to miss her a lot.”

Barcelona’s loss was Arsenal’s gain. The 30-year-old from the small Balearic town of Felanitx has taken the league by storm, becoming the first player to be named as the WSL Player of the Season in her first campaign on English soil – and she has relished the challenge.

“A lot of games at Barcelona were against a low block – attack, attack, attack. [There were] league games where we hardly had to defend,” she told The Guardian’s Sid Lowe in March, when Arsenal were trailing Real Madrid by two goals after the first leg of their UWCL quarter-final and staring down the barrel of an early exit.

“Here, it’s more open, more transitory – bigger distances, [more] space. It’s more physical, the football’s more mad, out of control – and I like that. Anything different I can add makes me more complete.”

And so, when Caldentey’s journey comes full circle in Lisbon on Sunday, there’s no room for nostalgia, nor is there room for sentiment as she comes up against former teammates – some of whom she played alongside from the age of 15.

What there is, though, is opportunity – to step into the Estádio José Alvalade, to play her heart out as she always does, and to show why leaving Barça has paid dividends.