The enormity of Chelsea’s task in their European semi-final second leg can be summed up in a few ominous statistics. For starters, their opponents, Barcelona, have never lost a two-leg Women’s Champions League tie after securing a first-leg victory. They have won 17 consecutive two-leg ties in the tournament and, this time, the eight-time semi-finalists are three goals ahead.
For Chelsea to knock them out from 4-1 down will require something out of the ordinary; historic in fact. Since Europe’s elite women’s club competition was rebranded to be known as the Women’s Champions League in 2009-10, no team have overturned a three-goal deficit to progress on aggregate.
The men’s edition has delivered a string of unforgettable comebacks, from a 95th-minute Sergi Roberto goal completing Barcelona’s 6-5 aggregate win over Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, and a corner taken quickly by Trent Alexander Arnold at Anfield, to Roma rising from their ruins to eliminate Barcelona on away goals in 2018.
In the Women’s Champions League, the closest to a three-goal deficit being overturned was a last-32 tie between Glasgow City and BIIK Kazygurt of Kazakhstan, when the Scottish club won the second leg 4-1 to level at 4-4 on aggregate but were eliminated on away goals. To make matters worse for Chelsea, the away goals rule is no longer in operation, somewhat lessening the value of Sandy Baltimore’s strike in last Sunday’s first leg.
Those three examples of men’s game comebacks involved Barcelona but their women’s side are not used to such rollercoasters; they have not lost a match by a three-goal margin or more since the 2019 European final when beaten 4-1 by a Lyon side that included the England right-back Lucy Bronze, who will line up for Chelsea against her old side on Sunday hoping to reproduce such a performance.
A three-goal win would merely force extra time. The last time Barcelona lost a game by a four-goal margin or more was in the autumn of 2012 when Arsenal were 4-0 winners in the second leg of a 7-0 aggregate victory. It was a night when the Scotland defender Jen Beattie scored a hat-trick. Yes, you read that correctly: a Beattie treble against Barça. How times change. That was a Barcelona side unrecognisable from the one trying to defend their Champions League title. Only Alexia Putellas, then 18, remains in the team.
Barcelona are trying to reach their fifth consecutive final and have won seven of their past 10 matches against English sides. To offer Chelsea fans a glimmer of hope, it should not be forgotten that their club were responsible for surely the joint-greatest comeback in Women’s Champions League history, when they battled back from a two-goal first-leg deficit to beat Manchester City 3-2 on aggregate in this season’s quarter-finals, 24 hours after Arsenal had done the same against Real Madrid, on a dramatic couple of March nights in London.
That recovery showed what Chelsea are capable of at their best; three goals in the first half from Baltimore, Nathalie Björn and Mayra Ramírez came in a spell of intense pressure that City could not cope with.
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This time, though, there will be no night-game atmosphere under the lights. It is a 2pm BST kick-off, amid Uefa’s persistence with scheduling the women’s European semi-finals on weekends, despite the clashes with a seemingly endless list of other domestic action. Whether the Stamford Bridge crowd can stir up the atmosphere witnessed there on some electric nights under the floodlights at women’s games, such as knocking out the eight-time champions Lyon on penalties in 2023 and overpowering a sock-less Arsenal a year later remains to be seen. The hosts have sold about 25,000 tickets.
If those hopeful Chelsea fans are not to go home disappointed, their team will need to show a huge improvement in possession from the first leg, when they touched the ball inside Barcelona’s box 12 times and completed just over half as many passes as their hosts. Second best in almost every department, they were unable to progress up the pitch with the confidence Women’s Super League viewers are used to seeing.
A rousing speech by Bronze, issued to her teammates on the pitch at full-time at Estadi Johan Cruyff, delivered a message that Chelsea must not give up, that they must believe they can fight back. It would be wrong to write them off but the form guide suggests Barcelona are the least likely team on the planet to relinquish a 4-1 lead.