Arsenal and Wolfsburg achieve perfect balance in Women's Champions League quarter-final - The Warm-Up

THURSDAY'S BIG STORIES Could Go One Way, Could Go The Other Ad/> What do we really want from the first-leg of a big two-legged tie? Obviously there's all the usual stuff we want from any game of football: goals, own goals, drama, pettiness, the humbling of the transcendentally gifted by vicious and vindictive fortune. You know, football. LigaOpinion: Aubameyang brings the joy back to Barcelona21/03/2022 AT 11:38 But two-legged football has its own shape and rhythms.

And perhaps the most important thing for the neutral is balance. Not necessarily in terms of the score: a goal lead here or there still keeps both sides in it. But in terms of the teams themselves.

We watched 90 minutes of Arsenal against Wolfsburg last night, and if you put a water pistol to our head and demanded we tell you which side was better, we'd just go «Hmmmmmm», «Mmmm», «Well», «Er», until all the water dried up and we could escape un-splooshed. We weren't alone in that, apparently. Neither coach made a change until well past the hour, which felt like a vote of confidence.

Wolfsburg were probably the better side in the first half; Arsenal were much improved in the second. Wolfsburg probably had the better chances: hitting the post twice in half a minute is a seriously good trick. But Arsenal had the better of the substitutions, and it was replacement Tobin Heath who drove the ball into Lotte Wubben-Moy's feet for the equaliser.

We need to make a formal apology to Heath here, by the way. At first blush we assumed that this was a total mishit; a shot so bad that it confused the hell out of the defence, as well as the Warm-Up, and only Wubben-Moy's quick thinking and incredible control saved the situation. But after watching it a few more times we've