Imagine what it must be like to lead out The Arsenal at Emirates Stadium for a north London derby in front of over 46,000 supporters, look over to your left and see a huge tifo of yourself!
For captain, leader, legend Kim Little, that was a reality on Saturday, and one she wasn’t made aware of beforehand, with the display recognsing her recent 400 appearance milestone for the club.
Trying to sum up her emotions after an unforgettable day, Kim told us after the north London derby win: “It’s hard to sum up. Just such a special day and one I’ll remember for my whole life.
“What the club did for me today. With obviously my family being here and celebrating that, to have them all together and then the big banner. Yeah, the best surprise ever. I didn’t expect that, coming out and looking to my left and that feeling of pride to represent the club and to know how appreciative people are of that longevity and loyalty I’ve had here. Yeah, that’s a moment I won’t forget.”
TV cameras showed Kim’s genuine reaction as she walked out onto the pitch and struggled to hold back the tears ahead of kick-off!
“It’s hard,” she explained. “You want to enjoy the moment and the celebration because I knew that’s what today was. But then obviously I’m here to do my job and to perform. So I need to keep myself emotionally at a fairly steady place to make sure we play the game well. So I tried to have a good balance and I think I did. But yes, it was just incredible.”
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There was a suggestion at Friday’s pre-match press conference that form can go out of the window on derby day, but that wasn’t the case for us as we extended our winning run to 11 matches in all competitions, so Kim was pleased with how we performed.
“I think we did really, really well at the start of the game,” she said. “I think we started fast. We spoke about that. I think we used the energy from the crowd, which just got us going, which ultimately led to us winning the match.
“We’re also a bit frustrated with the goals we conceded. We don’t concede often, so we don’t want that to become a thing. So we’ll look at that and work on that, so that’s frustrating, but Alessia scored her hat-trick, Stina scored a great goal. Caitlin came on back from the Asia Cup, scored a great goal. Stina got her 150th game. So lots of incredible things today. I’m glad that we won it together and for the fans.”
Attention now turns to a big week in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Women’s Champions League and Adobe Women’s FA Cup, with matches against Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion respectively.
“Big game after big game,” Kim added. “We go again on Wednesday against Chelsea. So we’ll recover and make sure we prepare as best we can to make sure we win that match and hopefully get through to the next stage of the Champions League.
“And then obviously we’ll move on to the FA Cup, another great competition. So an exciting week. We just hope we can keep pushing and keep getting results.”
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