Frida Maanum stabbed her forefinger at the cannon on her chest and screamed open-mouthed towards the sea of red and white in the stands as she wheeled away. The midfielder had just thundered the ball into the net to give Arsenal an early lead in what would end up a 2-2 draw with Manchester City at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
It was Maanum’s second goal of the season, her first coming in the 1-0 defeat of Rosenborg that secured Arsenal’s passage into the second round of Champions League qualifying two weeks before their Women’s Super League opener with City. They were drawn to face BK Hacken and welcome the Swedish side to Borehamwood on Thursday night seeking to overturn a 1-0 deficit from the first leg.
Sitting in a small meeting room at Arsenal’s London Colney training ground, Maanum is relaxed. The Norwegian forward appreciated her less intense summer, with two international camps but no major tournament. She split her time between Norway and Sweden, where her partner, Emma Lennartsson, plays, spending time with family and friends. There were no hobbies to turn to. “Should I be a boring person and say I don’t have any?” Maanum says with a bemused smile. After some thought she adds: “I like to watch tennis. Football too obviously, but I like to watch tennis and play tennis. I wouldn’t say I’m decent. I’m alright. I can hit the ball.”
The roar from the crowd when Maanum scored Sunday’s opening goal was loud. In fairness it would have been loud whoever had scored, but there may not have been as much emotion in the acclaim from the stands, or indeed the player. When people go through traumatic experiences together, it bonds them, for ever.
On 31 March, Maanum collapsed off the ball and close to the sideline in the 96th minute of Arsenal’s Continental Cup final victory over Chelsea at Molineux. She received lengthy treatment on the pitch before being taken off on a stretcher. There was obvious concern, which only eased after news circulated towards the end of extra time that Maanum was conscious, stable and talking to the medical staff.
“When things like that happen to you, you appreciate the small things even more,” the 25-year-old says. “Every time I step on the pitch, if it’s a training session or if it’s a game, I don’t take it for granted, because obviously it was hard to go through that time.
“It was important for me to get time off in the summer to reflect over what happened, but I feel even stronger going into the season after the last season and what happened in the final. It’s something I obviously wouldn’t want to happen but, at the same time, I’ve got a lot of positive things out of it, in terms of taking every opportunity, every training session, every game as it is, because I know not everyone has the opportunity to do what I’m doing after having had that happen.”
Arsenal revealed that there had been “no obvious cardiac causes” in the days following the incident. But Maanum is still carefully tracked. A monitor feeds live information during games to a member of the Arsenal medical team who is directly and specifically responsible for the player.
“I feel really safe and secure about it,” Maanum says. “We made a decision quite early on that they would do that, just as like insurance, because I’m quite a young athlete and have a lot of more years to play.
“I haven’t changed anything,” she adds, “which I think is good for me because that takes a bit of the attention away from it. Because when things like that happen you are scared afterwards. Then, over time, you get more used to the fact that it actually happened and accept it, kind of.”
Arsenal have also supported Maanum’s mental wellbeing after her collapse, something for which she is very grateful. “The club was great,” she says. “A lot of people forget about the mental side of things when physical things like that happen. That’s been even more important for me. It’s been important for me to speak about it, to open up and understand that it happened, but then move on and trust the medical side of things, and that it won’t happen again.”
Only 21 days later, Maanum returned to action, coming on in the 66th minute of Arsenal’s 3-0 defeat of Leicester in their final game at the Emirates Stadium last season. She received a huge standing ovation. “It was a great game to come into,” Maanum says. “Especially for feeling all the love from the fans knowing that a lot of them at that game were also at the [Continental Cup] final, so they probably felt what happened.”
Returning to play quickly, to avoid a summer of mental turmoil, was “really important” for Maanum. “The medical staff were not pushing anything, but personally I tried to push to get back because I knew that would be two or three months thinking a lot of thoughts about coming on to the pitch again and making my return and there’s a lot of attention around it because of what happened as well.”
Maanum came off the bench the following week against Everton, started Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat of Manchester City and scored Arsenal’s final goal of the 2023-24 campaign in a 5-0 defeat of Brighton. Hitting the ground running this season has helped put further distance between her and the events of March.
On Thursday night Maanum knows that, should she feature, her role against Hacken will be an important one. Arsenal controlled the first leg and created a huge number of chances but failed to capitalise, and were thwarted by Hacken’s well-marshalled low block.
As an attacking midfielder “you are the spider in the net, trying to create those chances and find those through passes”, Maanum says. “That’s an essential position in those kinds of games, where you have to break through a low block. In those games it’s even harder mentally, because you have to be patient. At the same time we know that they get a lot of energy for every minute that goes on when we haven’t scored. It’s important in those kinds of games to be patient and trust that the goals will come. Looking ahead, we have 90 minutes left in the tie, which we are going to finish on our home pitch.”
Is there pressure on Arsenal to deliver a strong and competitive season with silverware at the end of it having had more of a pre-season and with fewer serious injuries in the squad than in previous campaigns? “Definitely,” says Maanum. “We’re Arsenal. We always want to win trophies. We are really aware that we have won two League Cup trophies, which is great, but then looking at the squad, looking at the quality we have in our group, both as staff and players the goal for us is to win the league. That’s definitely in our heads and in our thoughts the whole time.”