Stand By Me - Leah Williamson

Arsenal VS Barcelona

Kameron's POV

The whistle blew and I ran up towards my position, already overwhelmed by the support and roars of the Barcelona fans, they always showed up amazingly. 

The ball was being played around the middle of the pitch in our possession mostly, but the Arsenal players were defending well, so we remained passing it around until hopefully a space would open up. 

Suddenly, I saw a pocket of empty field, which I dashed into collecting the ball. I passed the ball to Asisat as I felt Leah quickly catching up to me. 

Leah was center back today and I was center forward. I know we'd always said that we completed each other and slotted together like a perfect jigsaw, but did that have to be so literal in every sense? 
Though as much as I'd feared playing against her, it was a lot better that I'd expected because she was just like any other defender right now to me, I was a professional and this was my job. I wasn't going to let my personal life let us get knocked out of one of the biggest leagues in the world.

Running forward, the ball fell to my feet just at the corner of the box, no other players were in any position to score so I took a split second decision and shot. Mana leapt but it curved over her fingers, it was a practically impossible goal to save and went right into the back of the net.

Keira, who played in midfield, ran over to me picking me up into the air as the stadium shook with noise, the other Barca players surrounded us, all giving me a pat on the back. It was around half way through the first forty-five minutes and we were one goal ahead and in impressive form.

As we walked back into our positions, I saw Leah from across the pitch talking with Lotte, clearly in distress about the direction which the game was taking. She was in serious game mode and so was I. It was like we didn't even know each other. 

From my point of view, Leah was a very challenging player to be up against. She was physical and quick, she also wasn't scared to make a controversial tackle. Leah was incredibly talented at defending, they hadn't made her England captain only for her leadership. So, I knew that I needed to be careful because the ball could very quickly be swept from my feet if I wasn't smart with my moves. 

The whistle blew and the game was underway again. It felt quite evenly matched at times, both sides having their fair share of the ball and creating good space. But a lot of the time it felt we were in a better position. Though the Arsenal side was strong at defense, so we had to get through every single player if we wanted a shot on goal, they weren't making it easy for us.

Throughout the rest of the second half we'd created a couple of chances and I was on for one assist but Mana had saved them all. She was ridiculously amazing, I'd never quite appreciated her talent until coming up against her in a game like this. So the score remained 1 - 0 to us. 

It was an intense game though, there was barely a second to think and every decision had to made off of instinct which could leave a lot of room for error. It was also an incredibly physical game with a harsh referee, six players had already been booked and Katie had already had an argument with the ref. The tension in the stadium was building up as time went on. 

Arsenal were becoming more and more desperate for a goal and we were becoming increasingly frustrated about not getting past the defense. The next half was going to be interesting. 

During half time, the changing room was ramped up. Everyone was convinced we needed more goals because we all knew that we were more than capable which made everything all that more frustrating. This was a big game and we all wanted a big result. We wanted to walk into the final in a form which the other team would be scared of, we would already have an advantage then. A clean sheet was needed.