"No one thought that we'd be going to get our hands on that trophy." Alex Scott said it with a smile, but she meant every word. In 2007, Arsenal were a semi-professional outfit training twice a week, facing a Brazilian-led Umeå side that everyone expected to lift the UEFA Women's Cup. Then Scott — a right back — marauded 30 yards upfield in stoppage time of the first leg and drove one into the top corner. That was that.
Scott was speaking on The Athletic's Full Time podcast ahead of a quarterfinal that would have felt unimaginable back then: Arsenal vs Chelsea in the 2025-26 Women's Champions League, with the first leg at the Emirates on March 24 and the return at Stamford Bridge eight days later.
Stopping Marta, building a rivalry
The goal gets the headlines. What Scott remembers just as sharply is the defensive assignment that preceded it — marking Marta, the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year, across both legs of that final. "I was having sleepless nights, being like, 'How do you stop the best player in the world?'" She did stop her. Arsenal shut Marta out completely.
On the bench for Arsenal during those matches was a young assistant coach named Emma Hayes. Scott credits Hayes with something specific: "She was the first person that ever gave me the belief that I would be the best right back in the world." Hayes eventually left for Chelsea, took several former Arsenal players with her, and won 16 trophies in west London. The rivalry that followed has defined women's football in England ever since.
The one piece of silverware that eluded Hayes at Chelsea? The Champions League. The closest she got was the 2021 final — a 4-0 demolition by Barcelona that wasn't particularly close at any point.
Arsenal the benchmark, Chelsea hunting history
Arsenal are the defending champions, having beaten Barcelona 1-0 in Lisbon last May to lift the trophy for the second time. They remain the only English women's club to have won it. That matters when the odds are being shaped — Chelsea are not chasing a title they've come close to before. They're chasing territory that Arsenal have owned entirely.
Scott now presents Women's Champions League coverage for ESPN on Disney+ in the UK, which puts her in the unusual position of broadcasting a competition her own goal once decided. "For me to have won the Champions League and now be this side and present in the Champions League — that's the stuff that I don't even think I've wrapped my head around."
She joined Arsenal's youth setup at eight years old, made over 300 appearances for the club across three spells, won 22 trophies, earned 140 England caps — fifth on the all-time list — and reached a World Cup semifinal in 2015. What the 2006-07 quadruple season was, though, is the foundation everything else sits on.
"It is one of those fairytale stories," she said. It is. And next Tuesday, Arsenal and Chelsea start writing a new chapter — one Scott will be watching from a few feet away, microphone in hand.
