golden blonde¹

the sensational elena fernandez

may 01, 2023 - emirates stadium
elena will never forget the feeling of walking out to a full emirates stadium. sixty thousand fans cheering the word 'arsenal' over and over again was a feeling that couldn't be described. the closest word that would come to elena's mind was proud.

she was proud of what arsenal as a football club had accomplished, what the girls here accomplished was simply amazing, and she was glad that she played a small role in that.

when the champions league anthem is finished playing throughout the stadium, applause ripples through the stands and elena claps with a small smile on her face.

she follows jen down the line of high fives, wishing good luck to the wolfsburg players.

"good luck, jilly," elena sweetly said, using jana's nickname for jill as they clapped hands. the dutch's eyesbrows flared up, but she didn't say anything back.

for the team photo, she stood in between rafa and stina and grinned widely; she was ready for this, and she was going to take up every last moment and savor this day.

with one final starting eleven huddle between kick off, lia gathers the troops as katie finishes talking to the referees.

"this is it guys, the moment we've been waiting for. we're going to take it with two hands and play the best fucking football they've ever seen. we're going to win today, and we're going to that final. let's fucking go." katie told her ten teammates with vigor and determination.

"win on three, 1, 2, 3."

"WIN!"

it's brutally clear by the time that the referee blows her whistle that wolfsburg are not going to give up any ground at all. arsenal had expected this, and their aggressiveness from the very beginning, but this was on another scale. they were diving for headers they had no chance even recovering, sliding in tackles with no regard or hesitancy in their movements.

someone was going to get hurt if it kept going.

however, elena was too prideful to let the idea of herself getting hurt slow her play down. if that was how wolfsburg wanted to play, then so be it. elena was going to have to play without hesitancy, just like them.

the moment her foot first touched the football, her nervousness vanished away with every touch. it was true, wolfsburg was significantly more physical than arsenal, and they had a great size advantage, but the gunners would be damned if they let the she-wolves push them over that easily.

the first ten minutes are tense, elena knows that in her role as a wing back, it's her responsibility to contribute to all three tiers of the pitch, defending, attacking, and keeping possession of the ball in midfield. she couldn't be caught in one place when she was supposed to be in another.

victoria and katie press from the very beginning while wolfsburg maintain cool possession, leaving elena to cover their positions in midfield wherever gaps arose.

an early potential penalty against arsenal leaves katie talking to the referee while the rest of the arsenal players regroup at the edge of the box.

"never a pen," lotte laughs, as she was the one in question. elena herself didn't get a good look, she was behind the two players when the collision occurred, and she didn't feel much like adding unnecessary chatter in an environment where extra words could be mixed up easily.

instead, she nodded as lia gave frida some instructions on how to easily change sides of the pitch without having to worry about leaving holes in the midfield.

"elena or i will cover you, noelle and el aren't really being put into good attacking use right now, so we'll slim down the midfield for the time being. only go out wide when we're attacking down the wings." she told her swiss counterpart and the young spanish midfielder. they were really on the backfoot, since wolfsburg got the initial kick off and hadn't really given up possession for them to start an attack.