At the beginning of the second half, when Barça was suffering against Lyon in San Mamés in the Champions League final, Aitana Bonmatí, the current Ballon d’Or winner, recovered the ball almost in the center of the field in a counterattack by the French team. The footballer from Sant Pere de Ribas, only 1.61m tall, drove through the left zone to the baseline while she withstood the powerful attacks of the forward Diani one after another. The Spanish midfielder is a player who deceives those who don’t know her: she has fabulous technique, but also very strong legs and an extraordinary ability to carry the leather close to her foot at maximum speed. Bonmatí hid the ball from Diani and managed to get a corner. Emboldened, she turned towards the stands, raised her hands with angry gestures and asked for the support of the fans to try to end the bad situation after the Lyonnais had earlier approached the goal with a shot by Renard that went wide. over the crossbar as soon as he left the locker room.
2
Cata Coll, Fridolina Rolfö, Irene Paredes, Lucy Bronze, Ingrid Engen, Keira Walsh, Patri Guijarro, Aitana Bonmatí, Mariona Caldentey, Salma Paralluelo and Caroline Graham Hansen
0
Christiane Endler, Ellie Carpenter, Selma Bacha, Vanessa Gilles, Wendie Renard, Daniëlle van de Donk, Damaris Egurrola, Lindsey Horan, Kadidiatou Diani, Delphine Cascarino and Melchie Dumornay
Goals 1-0 min. 62: Aitana Bonmatí. 2-0 min. 95: Alexia Putellas.
Referee Rebecca Welch
Yellow cards Wendie Renard (min. 69), Alexia Putellas (min. 96) and Christiane Endler (min. 97)
Ten minutes later, Aitana detected the space behind Damaris Egurrola when Mariona received the ball alone in the center of the field. Bonmatí started sprinting and her partner leaked the leather. The midfielder controlled it about eight meters from the area and drove until she was leaning in front of Endler’s goal. Almost without an angle, he shot with his left foot, the ball grazed Gilles to change trajectory and sneak into the net. The most decisive player in this Champions League – six goals and six assists in 11 games – and in the world scored the goal that marked the match and, above all, left a formidable performance – she was chosen as the best in the final, as in 2021. in which he always partnered, made the game flow and showed character when the team needed it. “At home, with all the culés and against Lyon, what more could you ask for? It’s incredible what we are experiencing as a team. I am privileged to be living this with the club of my life. 12 years here feeling it from a very young age,” Aitana said at the end of the game.
The Barça party was ended by Alexia Putellas, the first great icon of this team, who hit a left-footed shot into the net in the 95th minute to close the scoring after having come on from the bench just three minutes earlier. With the goal, Putellas and Aitana – the two great figures of this era of Barça’s glory with three dried apricots— remain tied as the top scorers (22) in the club’s history in the competition.
This Champions League also represented a kind of relief for Irene Paredes. The Gipuzkoan suffered like no one else in her five seasons at PSG from the dominance of Olympique Lyon in France and Europe. The central team – which in Paris could only win a cup and a league due to the hegemony of its rival – lost the 2017 Champions League final against the Lyonnais in the penalty shoot-out and the 2020 semi-final. Already as a Barça player , felt that same frustration again two years ago in the final in Turin.
Paredes retaliated after suffering a very strong tackle from Dumornay in the first moments of the match. The Haitian forward collided with the defense and stepped on his left foot. The center was on the ground for more than a minute, was assisted and recovered. She continued to be sore from the blow – at several moments she made gestures that showed her discomfort – but she recovered and crashed again and again to nullify Lyon’s powerful attacker, a 20-year-old physical prodigy – she is one of the fastest players in the game. world—that this season he has three goals and two assists in the Champions League.
The victory is balmy for a club that is going through a difficult season in its men’s section. Not only because of a poker of unprecedented titles—Super Cup, League, Cup and Champions League—but because of what it meant for the social mass. Some 35,000 culés came to Bilbao, the second largest mobilization in Barça history, only behind the 45,000 who traveled to Seville to witness the 1986 Champions League final lost against Steaua Bucharest. The city was flooded with Barcelona fans—the tram and buses worked with great difficulty—to such an extent that on the sunny and hot afternoon of this Saturday the attendance record for a Champions League final was broken: 50,827 spectators, more than of the 50,212 that there were in 2012 in the Olympic Stadium in Munich in Lyon’s victory against Eintracht. Almost as if Barça had played at home.
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