Barcelona wants to continue reigning in Europe. He doesn’t want a past loss away from home to tarnish his record. They do not want, either, to settle for second place in the group stage. The blaugranas showed their good game, dominated without opposition and beat a limited Manchester City with a long list of injuries (3-0). Not only the victory was important, but also the three goals – from Claudia Pina, Aitana Bonmatí and Alexia Putellas – to achieve a perfect revenge: Barça needed to win by at least two goals to go first in the group to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. and avoid rivals like Chelsea and Olympique Lyon. At the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, with nearly 30,000 spectators, a match that turned into an early final was played.
3
Cata Coll, Esmee Brugts, Ona Batlle (Vicky López, min. 86), Irene Paredes, Mapi León, Keira Walsh (Kika Nazareth, min. 73), Patri Guijarro, Aitana Bonmatí (Jana Fernández, min. 86), Clàudia Pina (Alexia Putellas, min. 66), Ewa Pajor and Salma Paralluelo (Fridolina Rolfö, min. 73)
0
Khiara Keating, Kerstin Casparij, Leila Ouahabi, Alanna Kennedy, Laia Aleixandri, Laura Blindkilde Brown (Lily Murphy, min. 59), Jill Roord, Yui Hasegawa, Mary Fowler, Jessica Park (Laura Coombs, min. 80) and Aoba Fujino
Goals
1-0 min. 43: Claudia Pina. 2-0 min. 56: Aitana Bonmatí. 3-0 min. 68: Alexia Putellas
Referee Jelena Cvetkovic
yellow cards
Kerstin Casparij (min. 81)
The match was conditioned by a City weakened by the number of casualties in its squad, including three key players in that first round: Alex Greenwood, Lauren Hemp and Bunny Shaw, the latter the top scorer in the Champions League for the English team. Barça, on the contrary, with the full squad for the first time with Pere Romeu on the bench. Although Graham Hansen remained there, in discomfort, throughout the match. Salma Paralluelo played for her, who enjoyed her first start this season. He added good moments, but he was a victim of his lack of filming.
City was choked by its audacity. The tables were turned in Montjuïc. It was Barça who imposed their law, their possession and their high pressing, with Mapi León cutting balls even from the center of the field. The blaugranas settled in the rival area, but without luck with the goal. The game was not going well for the English, undecided in the face of Barça’s dominance, and the confusion was evident when Khiara Keating threw herself to the ground while the team citizens He was in a huddle around his coach, Gareth Taylor, in the technical area.
Even so, the approach did not change: Barcelona did not give him a chance. Aitana Bonmatí ran freely through Montjuïc, distributing passes from side to side, stealing balls to start counterattacks—very active also recovering Patri Guijarro and Esmee Brugts—and kicking on goal. However, there was no success, with the winner of The Best throwing herself to the ground on her back: the shots, which did not stop, failed to enter the goal, both due to lack of precision, and due to the merit of Keating, who was good at saving, fairer in his footwork.
But the lack of effectiveness did not turn into frustration. On the contrary. Claudia Pina was attentive when a ball was dead in the City area after a rebound and she sent it to the back of the net, where she picked it up herself to celebrate. Patri Guijarro kissed the ball before starting the second half, and it was lucky. Pajor also tried constantly trying to distance himself from the suffocating defense of Alanna Kennedy and Laia Aleixandri, a former culé youth player. He settled for the assist he gave between the lines to Aitana, who scored the second between the goalkeeper’s legs. citizens. With City without arguments, melted by the Barça intensity, Alexia Putellas entered the field to finish off the match: from the balcony of the area she tricked Keating, who stood watching the captain’s low shot.
And although Barcelona could have abandoned itself to the tranquility of already being first in the group, the changes near the end gave freshness to continue and continue in search, always, of more goals.
