Champions League women: Barcelona-Lyon final

Stellar challenge tonight at the Allianz Stadium in Turin between Barcelona and Lyon. After Reggio Emilia in 2016, Italy returns to host a women’s Champions League final. The strongest teams in the continent on the pitch from 19, remake of the 2019 final won 4-1 by the French. Barcelona are reigning champions and are experiencing an extraordinary moment of form. He killed La Liga with thirty wins out of thirty games and, apart from the defeat in the second leg of the semifinal against Wolfsburg, with a qualification mortgaged from 5-1 in the first leg, he has won in 45 matches consecutively.

Experience

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But Lyon are still first in the Uefa rankings and today they will play their tenth final of the tournament, which they have won seven times, a record. As well as record, in addition to appearances in the final and semifinal, are the goals scored and the longest unbeaten streak. In addition, Melvine Malard is the first historic goal in the group stage that debuted this year, while in the semifinals Wendie Renard became the first to cross the milestone of one hundred appearances; the club is also the only one in triple numbers of matches in the tournament. The French have won all three of the previous ones, the final of 2019 and the double quarter of 2018. «For me it is a 50-50 final – said captain Renard -, there is no favorite. Barcelona are a great team, they are the reigning champions and we have a lot of respect for them. But our history is not erased and we are here to write another great chapter ».

Total Alexia

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Tonight spotlight on stars Alexia Putellas and Ada Hegerberg. Different but tremendously lethal players. Barcelona captain Putellas embodies the guardiolesque modernity. She is a “roleless” player who loves to float between midfield and attack. Just to give an idea because comparisons between men and women in football are rightly taboo, her sphere of influence is reminiscent of that of De Bruyne in Manchester City. Her strong sense of goal allowed her to win the Ballon d’Or and all the major individual prizes in 2021: Fifa, Uefa, Globe Soccer. Alexia leads the current 2021-22 Champions League top scorers with ten goals alongside Wolfsburg’s Tabea Wassmuth, further boost tonight for another great milestone. “We had a wonderful season – Putellas said yesterday at a press conference -. We feel the energy of our fans. We want to bring home the Champions we won last year”.

Ada in history

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The Norwegian Hegerberg is instead a pure forward, technical, powerful and mobile at the same time. Ballon d’Or 2018, she is back from a long injury and for her too the final in Turin is a great opportunity to make her incredible record of 58 goals scored in 59 Champions League appearances “perfect”. Ada is a real bugbear for Barcelona: in the 2019 final won by Lyon 4-1 she scored three goals in 16 minutes in the first half. She played four finals in total, winning all of them, scoring five goals overall. She was the top scorer in two editions, 2015-16 and 2017-18. In the latter you have recorded the record of goals in one edition: 15. And Italy is doing them well. In 2016 in Reggio Emilia with Lyon you beat Wolfsburg on penalties, her goal of 1-1 in regulation time.

Builders of development

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Among the many personalities present in the stands also the mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau, who confirmed the setting up of a large screen in Plaça de Catalunya for the tens of thousands of fellow citizens who are passionate about Barça regardless of gender. To do the honors there will be the president of the Football Federation Gabriele Gravina, who has spent so much for the growth of women in Italy. “There is no better setting than Turin to host this splendid match – said Gravina with pride -, the show will be guaranteed by the two best European teams. It was a season in which women’s football was definitively consecrated”. Alongside him, Uefa number one Aleksander Ceferin, who will come down from the stands tonight to reward the girls. The one who globally believed and did more than anyone to develop the movement by increasing investments, changing the format and centralizing television rights. Turin will reap the rewards tonight.