Bonmatí and Putellas give away all blaugrana to the third Champions League.
The Women’s Champions League final between Barcelona and Lyon is staged in the setting of San Mamès with over fifty thousand spectators. The two best teams in Europe face each other on the most prestigious stage. On the one hand Barcelona must reconfirm themselves champion and win the most important cup for the third time, beating the only opponent he is missing; on the other Lyon wants to prove that they are still the team to beatwinning the ninth Champions League in its history.
Barcelona arrives at this final as slight favourites, with the aura of invincibility surrounding them blaugrana it’s massive and it’s hard to even imagine them losing a match. The enthusiasm of the fans was incredible, to the point of invading the streets of Bilbao with players’ t-shirts, immediately putting in black and white that it would be a home match for the Barça players. As reported by The Athletic journalist Laia Cervelló Herrero, more than forty thousand fans had arrived from Barcelona. On the other hand, Lyon excels in this type of match making its name, its history weigh, with eight Champions League wins – 6 in the last 8 years – and, above all, having always won against Barcelona, with the last match dating back to a Champions League final, played in Turin in 2022 and won by the French 3-1.
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The match is very intense from the start: the pace is high and Lyon immediately tries to suffocate Barcelona and, in fact, immediately commits a foul after a few seconds of play against Paredes. A foul perhaps useless but with the intention of drawing a line and instill a certain psychological subjugation in the minds of the Barça players, in an attempt to awaken the ghosts of Turin. Lyon continues to be aggressive and immediately had a great opportunity with Cascarino, promptly closed by Bronze. Time passes and Barcelona gains rhythm, control of the ball and the pitch. Giráldez’s team tries to play as he knows how, but Bompastor has organized the structure well Lyon’s defense in order to minimize playing time and opportunities for Barcelona’s players.
Even the blaugrana they have structured a system of preventive markings, annihilating the counterattacks of Bompastor’s team, which is banking on the technique and speed of the two wingers – Cascarino and Diani – to hurt Barça. For the entire first half neither team wants to knock the first pawn off the board and take risks with respect to the starting strategy. Both play openlyleaving spaces behind but, as soon as they lose the ball, the players are good at closing spaces and neutralizing any counterattacks.
Lyon, in the non-possession phase, compacts with a 4-4-1-1 covering the center and moving the game to the sides: the lines of the departments are very narrow and there is no room for Bonmatí and her companions to insert themselves or dialogue with each other, because Lyon seems, in the defensive phase, to follow a very specific script in order to cancel the offensive phase blaugrana. Paralluelo suffers in this type of match, she is a player who expresses herself best when she can attack in depth, but the lack of space and the clash with Gilles and Renard, together with Carpenter’s runs, they are taking her breath away. The French give the impression of having control of the match, and have the experience to put the situation in their favor, while for Barcelona every minute that passes increases the anxiety of scoring in some way and the many players they bring in forward they don’t seem to be enough to find the goal. Stress builds up and it could all explode at any moment.
The match is available in full on the DAZN YouTube channel.
In the second half Barcelona raises the engine revsincreasing the intensity and speed of the exchanges by conquering more and more of the pitch, fluidizing the classic mechanisms that until then seemed to have been rusted by Lyon’s ability to eliminate spaces in the middle of the pitch. Lyon is starting to concede something, especially on the right wing, and that is where the Barça players concentrate their firepower. Just building on the left wing, Barcelona finds the first goal. It’s the 62nd minute and Barça find themselves on the left, Lyon seem to have the situation under control.
Mariona receives the ball surrounded by three or four players in white shirts, Rolfö on the left is unusable and, as if by magic, the Catalan number nine can no longer even go back to Guijarro, screened by Horan. She’s caged. Marionatherefore, he draws on his own muscle memory and searches for a connection that cannot be thought but only executed, as if it were an automatism, he just does it, regardless of the context, he knows it will work because he has already done it, thousands of times. Bonmatí is close, but impossible to serve with a normal pass, Mariona, with a half scavetto, puts the ball in a patch of pitch where there is none and where it seems impossible for Bonmatí to reach but, the fact of having raised the ball slightly, gives the possibility to the number 14 to go around the opponent, gain speed and win the ball.
So Bonmatí throws himself into a very narrow corridor that was formed out of nothing, picks up speed and finds himself in front of Gilles, who is more static than the Spaniard and has to be careful not to commit a penalty foul. Bonmatí, with a change of direction, avoids the conflict with the Canadian powerhouse. This opens up a shooting opportunity for her, even if the window is very narrow. The ball, however, remains on her left (weak foot) but Bonmatí tries anyway, shooting with a flat left shot. Gilles attempts a desperate slide and touches the ball just enough to knock goalkeeper Endler out of action. Barcelona takes the lead San Mamès is bedlam.
After Bonmatí’s advantage the board jumps and, progressively, patterns and markings begin to skip. Lyon poured into attack, pushing hard to try for the equalizer. Giráldez decides to cover himself on the left and removes Rolfö for Batlle, rebalancing Barça’s most unbalanced side. The match gets nasty and becomes more physical, Renard is booked for an overly impetuous tackle on Hansen, a sign of growing nervousness. Barcelona have learned to play with time – especially after the semi-final experience with Chelsea – and every interruption becomes more important than a scoring opportunity for the blaugrana. The hands are running.
In the 80th minute Hegerberg came on, having been out due to a muscle injury that kept her out for two months, and it was she who, in the 87th minute, had the 1-1 ball on her head after masterfully breaking away from the marker of Engen, but does not find the mirror. In the 91st minute the moment the whole stadium was waiting for arrives: Enter Alexia Putellas: the number 11, two-time Golden Ball winner, comes in to cool down the match, her experience and technique must help Barça freeze the result. Instead, Alexia inflames her even more.
In the 94th minute, after yet another deep ball for Lyon’s Hegerberg, Barça recovered the ball with Paredes and restarted with Putellas. Barcelona sees the space and cannot fail to exploit it: It’s in his DNA to attack. The ball reaches Pina who serves Batlle who came up from the defense for the last attack. The 22 loses the ball but Pina is nearby and picks it up again. She too, with a half dig, gives the ball back to Batlle who looks around her but closes the triangle with Pina. The number 6, in the penalty area in front of Carpenter, controls and passes behind for Putellas who arrives and, with all the strength he has in his left leg, of first intention, puts the ball under the crossbar. When Alexia scores, the stadium falls downwith the player rejoicing by taking off her shirt and bowing under the curve.
Barcelona won their third Champions League and there was no better way to do it than this: against the only team they had left to beat and with the goal by Aitana Bonmatí and Alexia Putellas, the most representative of the club.
Barcelona avenged the fateful final in Turin in 2022, lost against Lyon. From 2021 to today, Barcelona has played in all the Champions League finals, winning three. Lyon, with 8 Champions, still remains the team with the most important history in this competition, but something is changing and Barcelona, season after season, seems to impose itself more and more, leaving nothing to the others. How, then, to fill the gap between Lyon and the other teams with Barcelona? “We will focus on ourselves, we will work even harder, we will come back”, Horan replied at the end of the game. Lyon’s desire to win was certainly not erased by this final but, on the contrary, it increased it: “Lyon’s mentality will not changenot tomorrow, not in the future”declared captain Renard, the day before the final.
Both teams will change technical leadership after this season: Bompastor seems headed to the Chelsea bench to take up Hayes’ legacy and try to achieve the Champions League goal with the Blues, Giráldez flies to America to join the Washington Spirit. These changes could shift the balance within European football, but this Champions League final has consolidated a rivalry that could play into the growth in visibility of women’s football: Barcelona – Lyon thus becomes a classic of top-level football. These teams, with their champions, will continue to battle on the biggest stages and will keep us entertained for a long time to come.
2024-05-27 10:00:00
#revenge #womens #Barcelona
