heartbreak in the final in 2021<\/a> before knocking Chelsea out in three back-to-back semi finals up to last season. Chelsea have just one win, but that hard-fought 1-0 victory against the Catalan giants in Spain was undone in London, and one draw in seven games against the Blaugrana.<\/p>\nOn a horrendously cold night the opening 15 minutes followed a familiar pattern, the visitors dominating possession and frustrating an unsettled home side with their aggressive press. It was the Blues\u2019 goal against the run of play that triggered a more even encounter. The full-back Carpenter, playing in front of the right-back Lucy Bronze, collected the ball from Aggie Beever-Jones just inside the Barcelona half and raced towards the box unchallenged before she lashed it ferociously past Cata Coll. It was a blistering effort and the celebrations were wild, Chelsea taking a lead at home against Barcelona for the first time in four attempts.<\/p>\n
Ellie Carpenter lashes the ball past Cata Coll to put Chelsea ahead. Photograph: Neil Hall\/EPA<\/p>\n
The Carpenter-Bronze axis on the right was a potent one, as was the equally rapid combination of Alyssa Thompson and Sandy Baltimore on the left. They nullified the dynamic Barcelona forwards Caroline Graham Hansen and Cl\u00e0udia Pina, keeping them busy by helping out their own full-backs as they struggled to contain the wide onslaught.<\/p>\n
The goal injected confidence into Bompastor\u2019s side and they created the better chances of the half, but a Barcelona corner helped cancel out Carpenter\u2019s stunning strike, the ball falling kindly for Ewa Pajor, who took a step to her left and fired in. It was the 36th Champions League goal for the Poland forward, who was a runner-up four times in the competition with Wolfsburg.<\/p>\n
Chelsea attempted to take advantage on the resumption of the game, Thompson trying her luck after a quick attack but she put her effort wide. There was a nervous energy after half-time, the home team\u2019s inability to convert their superior number of shots on target while Barcelona dominated possession a worry as the clock ticked on.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to be perfect you have to be clinical and that is something we are working on, we won\u2019t give up on that aspect,\u201d said Bompastor.<\/p>\n
There was an unusual pause shortly before the end of the first half, prompting nine minutes added on, when the live feed of the game went down and disrupted TV coverage and the VAR. The players tried to stay warm on the pitch until the action resumed.<\/p>\n
The referee stops play before a technical issue delayed the Women\u2019s Champions League tie for nine minutes in the first half. Photograph: John Walton\/PA<\/p>\n
It was Carpenter who attempted to alleviate the Barcelona pressure that dominated the opening 15 minutes of the second half much in the way it had the first, the former Lyon player breaking forward in a move that mirrored her run for the opening goal but this time her effort was low and wide of the far post.<\/p>\n
There was frustration for Chelsea in the 74th minute, celebrations cut short after Macario\u2019s clinical header with her first touch after coming on in place of Beever-Jones was deemed offside, the margin extremely tight.<\/p>\n
There was further agony when Carpenter put the ball wide of the far post with just Coll to beat from close range on the right after receiving a backheel pass from Macario in a neat one-two.<\/p>\n
Quick GuideWCL roundup: Atl\u00e9tico thrash Twente as Bayern blow away PSGShow<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/b>\u00a0made it two wins from four in the Women’s Champions League with a 4-0 thrashing of Twente<\/b>.<\/p>\n
The Spanish side opened the scoring in the 29th minute via a low, rifled shot from\u00a0Amaiur Sarriegi before\u00a0J\u00falia Bartel,\u00a0Synne Jensen and\u00a0Fiamma Ben\u00edtez piled on the pain for their hosts. The win leaves Atl\u00e9tico ninth in the table and Twente languishing in 14th place.<\/p>\n
Bayern Munich<\/b>, meanwhile, rose to fifth with a 3-1 victory at Paris Saint-Germain<\/b>.\u00a0Linda Dallmann,\u00a0Momoko Tanikawa and\u00a0Jovana Damnjanovic found the net to inflict a fourth loss from four on PSG, who are now rock bottom.<\/p>\n
In the other match of the evening, OH Leuven<\/b> held Roma<\/b> to a 1-1 draw at home.<\/p>\n
The visitors were well-placed to take all three points thanks to\u00a0Evelyne Viens’ slotted finish after 18 minutes, but the Belgian side were awarded a penalty for an off-the-ball foul after a VAR check midway through the second half and\u00a0Jada Conijnenberg did the business from the spot.\u00a0Will Magee<\/b><\/p>\n
Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n
\u201cChelsea were very stable and they pressed us. That meant the second balls were theirs,\u201d said the Barcelona manager, Pere Romeu. \u201cIt was a good game. It\u2019s very different to the last semi-finals as Chelsea matched all the players we had and that limited us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The draw means Bompastor\u2019s and Romeu\u2019s sides remain two of the three unbeaten teams, the former earning a draw for the second time and the latter\u2019s perfect start halted. They remain in good positions, Barcelona topping the table on 10 points and Chelsea in sixth on eight with two rounds of fixtures remaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The spoils were shared at Stamford Bridge between Chelsea and their Champions League torturers Barcelona, but Sonia Bompastor\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":393898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-393897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115585957463854507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}