McCabe & Arsenal must 'pick moments' in daunting final

Katie McCabe and Arsenal will have to pick their moments if they are to pull off an almighty upset against Barcelona in Saturday's UEFA Women's Champions League final, according to Shelbourne and former Republic of Ireland midfielder Rachel Graham.

The Gunners will be in Lisbon to face the holders, with plenty of Irish squad support heading to the Portuguese capital to cheer on the Girls in Green captain as she aims to follow in the footsteps of the trio of Emma Byrne, Ciara Grant and Yvonne Treacy who became European champions with the Londoners back in 2007.

However, this time will more than likely have to be a backs-to-the-wall performance of the highest order for Arsenal to triumph and a game in which McCabe will be doing more defending than getting forward from left back.

However, speaking on the RTÉ Soccer Podcast, her former Ireland colleague Graham highlighted how McCabe was able to strike the right balance in the two-legged semi-final victory over Lyon.

"She did that in the semi-final. She marked one of their best players out of the game," said Graham, who also ran the rule over Carla Ward's latest Republic of Ireland squad which includes a new recruit.

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"Katie's obviously a really good attacking player but she's also really good defensively and we know from watching her, she's not afraid to make a hard tackle or leave one in on a player.

"I assume she's going to be doing the same. You pick your moments in these kind of games where you have to understand you're going out to be hard to beat.

"But when you do see your moment of 'we can go and attack', then you go for it.

"But Katie, she plays with her heart on her sleeve and I'm sure it's not going to be any different now on Saturday, and you just hope even if they don't get the win or they don't get it over the line that it's not a really high-scoring game or game that's over after 30 minutes, that they get the full experience of playing in a Champions League final and push them as far as they can. But it's certainly a very tough task."

Ciara Grant, Emma Byrne, and Yvonne Tracy after earning European glory in 2007 with Arsenal

A tough task it certainly will be with Barcelona stocked with World Cup winners from the Spain squad and a sprinkling of overseas megastars.

"Barcelona at the moment is the toughest game in women's football that you can probably get," Graham said.

"Even the form they're in at the moment going into that game. Their last three games were 6-0, 9-0 and 4-0 and their goal difference within their league is 112. So it's scary numbers, the amount of goals they're scoring.

"It's a really, really tough task and if you're Arsenal, you just have to accept what it is. You're not going to have the ball for a lot of the game and it's just about 'how can we frustrate Barcelona, how can we keep them out, how can we keep the scoreline down or keep a clean sheet or reduce the space for them to play in?'

"This is Barcelona's fifth year in a row being in this final. The players know the emotions that go with it and the feelings. Of course they'll be nervous and will have the adrenalin as well but for the likes of Arsenal players, it's the amount of adrenalin that's going to go through them, the amount of excitement and often you see in cup finals, the first ten minutes is hell for leather and 100 mile an hour.

"But Arsenal need to manage all of that and keep it as calm as possible and just make themselves as hard as possible to beat because Barcelona are so good at the moment.

"And even, (Ewa) Pajor is their top scorer and she has 25 in the league but even after that, even if you keep her quiet, they have (Alexia) Putellas and (Aitana) Bonmati who are all popping up with goals as well. So it's not a case of just keep (Pajor) quiet and the rest will suffer."

Follow a live blog on Wednesday's Europa League final (8pm) on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app

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