Emma Hayes’ Champions League dream stays alive. Chelsea’s 1-0 house defeat to Barcelona of their semi-final first leg equipped sufficient positives and a slender sufficient margin for the second one leg at Camp Nou to appear moderately much less daunting.
More than 700 days for the reason that 2021 last, the place Chelsea succumbed to a humiliating 4-0 defeat to Barça, there was once an opportunity for a bit redemption at Stamford Bridge. Of the beginning XI that performed in that bruising last in Gothenburg, six have been at the staff sheet to start out in London – with the injured Fran Kirby and Millie Bright absent and Pernille Harder and Sophie Ingle at the bench – of those that are nonetheless on the membership.
Then, Guro Reiten and Erin Cuthbert got here off the bench in the second one part, however they’re each now fixtures of Chelsea’s beginning line-up. There was once marvel on the omission of the potent Lauren James, who started at the bench, with Hayes opting for Jelena Cankovic over the England superstar possibly to offer extra defensive quilt to right-back Ève Périsset – Chelsea have been undone at the flanks in 2021.
Two years in the past, it took 33 seconds for Barcelona to take the lead and, at Stamford Bridge, there was once every other early sucker punch. This time the Blues held out for 3 mins and 11 seconds, with Caroline Graham Hansen reducing inside of from the proper, moving previous Melanie Leupolz and lashing powerfully past a diving Ann-Katrin Berger prior to Cuthbert may just shut her down. It have been a depraved deflection off Leupolz that looped over Berger and gave Barcelona the lead in that last prior to Chelsea crumbled, conceding 3 extra by way of the thirty sixth minute. This time, despite the fact that, they held it in combination.
This time too, Chelsea have been an arguably weaker aspect – with out Harder, Kirby and the departed Ji So-yun within the beginning XI. The fluid soccer that has been the staff’s hallmark in recent times has been much less provide this season, with gamers coming out and in of the staff to disrupt the consistency and rhythm of that taste of play. However, that has, counterintuitively, had its benefits. After Chelsea’s combating 1-0 FA Cup semi-final defeat of Aston Villa on Sunday, Hayes spoke to that.
“The staff inform me this, they find it irresistible like this, tight squad, numerous alternatives, dig in, everybody’s were given to battle to dig the outcome out. We, as a staff, appear to do actually neatly in those classes,” she stated, prior to pointing to the injury-time leveller after which penalty defeat of Lyon, eight-time European champions, as a key second for the dressing room.
Barcelona may have taken an early lead, but the ball hitting the back of the net had little impact on Chelsea’s belief that they could cause an upset. While they were ready to relinquish possession, Hayes’ side also threatened. Their best chances came from Sam Kerr linking up with Reiten. The first saw the Australian head towards her teammate, who brought the ball down and laid it back to Kerr before the forward’s strike powered off the upper arm of a defender and trickled towards the far post for Sandra Paños to gather. Again, Kerr flicked on for Reiten around the half-hour mark and the Norwegian beat Paños but Lucy Bronze, the Barça right-back, got her body in the way to force a corner.
At the break the signs of Chelsea’s progress over the last two years were clear, not least in the three-goal difference between the scorelines. Hayes hooked Cankovic for James on the break as the home team went on the hunt. As in the first half, it was end-to-end, with Jonathan Giraldez’s side happy to shift down a gear and Chelsea looking to catch them on the break.
There was concern for Sarina Wiegman, the watching England manager, past the hour mark when Bronze limped off with a knee injury, unable to put weight on her leg, a day after Leah Williamson’s knee injury was confirmed as an ACL rupture.
With Chelsea determined to take a purpose to Camp Nou, Harder was once thrown into the combo for the primary time this 12 months along Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Jessie Fleming. Meanwhile, Asisat Oshoala, who has 24 objectives this season, was once a number of the Barcelona substitutes to go into the fray after lacking the sport in opposition to Atlético Madrid on the weekend. They may just now not in finding the leveller in opposition to a possession-heavy Barcelona, however a gutsy efficiency will go away the underdogs relishing the opposite fixture subsequent Thursday.