Jill Scott interview: WSL needed to be more competitive to help English teams crack Women’s Champions League

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Evening Standard

·8 June 2024

Jill Scott interview: WSL needed to be more competitive to help English teams crack Women’s Champions League

Exclusive: Just one English team has ever conquered Europe, and that came 17 years ago

Barcelona’s 2-0 win over Lyon in Bilbao last month was the 23rd Women’s Champions League final.

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Just two have included English teams, and only one of them — Arsenal, way back in 2006/07 — have won it.

England legend Jill Scott reached two Champions League semi-finals during nine years at Manchester City, losing them both to Lyon.

“If you’re making a semi-final, you’re in the top four teams that are in this competition and that’s got to be applauded these days,” she explains to Standard Sport. “Lyon have won eight Champions Leagues and been in 11 finals, so automatically you’ve got try and knock down that door. Look at Barcelona and the amazing football they play.”

This season Chelsea reached the semi-finals but were knocked out by eventual winners Barca in Emma Hayes’s final season as Blues’ head coach. The other two English teams in the competition, Arsenal and Manchester United, lost in the qualifying rounds.

Jill Scott on punditry duty during England's Men's Euro 2024 qualifying win against Italy in March 2023

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But Scott, 37, notes: “In the past three seasons, we’ve seen Arsenal and Chelsea in semi-finals and Chelsea make the final.

“Arsenal were a victim, this season, of just coming into the club season on the back of [England making] the World Cup final.

“We had it at Manchester City. We’d previously made two semi-finals and suddenly we found ourselves knocked out in the first qualifying round. Going into the Champions League on the back of a tournament, I don’t think people appreciate how much it takes it out of you.”

Hayes and Chelsea have come closest in recent seasons to cracking European football and proving that English clubs can dominate on the European stage.

“Look at the journeys Emma’s team went on,” says Scott, who is an ambassador for Heineken’s ‘Cheers To The Real Hardcore Fans’ which seeks to change perceptions over what it means to be a ‘hardcore’ football fan.

“She got them into the Champions League, then a semi-final, then a final, and that’s what it takes: experience. We all said the WSL needed to become more competitive — and it’s definitely getting there — because the Champions League is a whole other ball game. They were so close to reaching that final again. I think Chelsea will continue to be a frontrunner in the competition.”

Any Blues' success will be under a new manager, Sonia Bompastor, who arrives after three seasons at Lyon, guiding them to the Champions League title in 2021/22.

The WSL needed to become more competitive because the Champions League is a whole other ball game

Jill Scott

Will Chelsea finally crack the competition under her tutelage? “I don’t think she’ll come in and [revolutionise],” says Scott. “It’s more about receiving the baton from Emma Hayes and continuing that great work. I think she’ll be a good addition and we’ve seen the good work she did with Lyon.”

The emergence in recent years of clubs traditionally more esteemed in the men’s game — Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Ajax and others — has hiked the Women’s Champions League to new heights of competitiveness.

“It’s definitely getting [harder],” Scott reflects. “Now you don’t know who is going to win, and that’s what you want.”

Remembering her own playing days when City were first breaking into European football, Scott says: “If I’m being completely honest, we probably had a few nerves. After semi-final, semi-final, final, those nerves will ease and you’ll get experience. Look at Chelsea; that belief element will be there now.

“English teams are investing in players. Teams like Manchester City — I know I’m a little biased — have players that should be on that Champions League stage, players like Jill Roord, Bunny Shaw and Lauren Hemp.

“I really wouldn’t be surprised if we see more and more English teams doing well in the Champions League. We’re all just desperate to see an English team win it, especially seeing Arsenal do it all those years ago.