A blog of two halves

So near and yet so far – again – for Emma’s team

Chelsea came close to reaching the final of this year’s Women’s Champions League with a brave performance in front of a baying 72,000-strong crowd at Camp Nou.

28 April 2023
By Tim Harrison
Categories:
Chelsea FC
Image 1

Chelsea Women pose for a team photograph at Camp Nou in Barcelona. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Barcelona Femení 1-1 Chelsea Women

Chelsea came close to reaching the final of this year's Women's Champions League with a brave performance in front of a baying 72,000-strong crowd at Camp Nou, but Barcelona were a smidgen too good on the night.

Fighting to restore parity after a 1-0 defeat at the Bridge in the first leg, Chelsea fell behind after an hour. The home supporters in Spain relaxed.

Then, with 23 minutes still to go, the Blues levelled thanks to a glorious Guro Reiten volley, and it was suddenly Barca that had the jitters.

Although the Spanish side clung on, it showed that Emma Hayes' squad – hit by injuries to key players – could compete at the top level.

It was certainly a better showing than the 4-0 capitulation in May 2021, which showed just how much ground Chelsea had to make up on their European rivals.

Erin Cuthbert summed up the dressing room feeling at the end of the match, saying how encouraged the team had been to go toe-to-toe against Barcelona and come away with their heads held high.

More to come

Chelsea are still fighting for an FA Cup and WSL double, but the games are coming thick and fast.

Seven matches in 25 days would test any squad, but with Pernille Harder only just returning to fitness, Fran Kirby and key defenders Millie Bright and Kadeisha Buchanan out, it's going to go right to the wire.

Chelsea fans are relishing the trip to Wembley on 14 May for the cup final against Manchester United, but first there are the little matters of entertaining both the Merseyside clubs in the space of a week at Kingsmeadow.

Liverpool are first up, on Wednesday, before Everton's visit on Sunday evening.

Maximum points from those games, and the disappointment of Barcelona will be put behind the squad until the next season's Champions League begins. Hayes is getting closer all the time.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

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Tim Harrison

Tim is our Chelsea FC blogger.

He also writes our Shepherds Bush Cricket Club match reports during the football close season.

Tim has been writing Chelsea match reports since the late 1980s for newspapers and, more recently, websites.

When he first reported on the Blues, the press box was a metal cage suspended over the lip of the old west stand - and you reached it via a precarious walkway over the heads of the fans.

But he has been a Chelsea fan since his father took an excited seven-year-old to watch Chelsea v Manchester United in the mid 1960s... and covered his ears every time the chanting got too ripe.

In July 2005 he wrote The Rough Guide to Chelsea, published by Penguin, which sold 15,000 copies.

His favourite player of all time is Charlie Cooke, the mazy winger who lit up Chelsea's left wing in the 60s and 70s.

When he isn't watching the Blues, Tim acts, paints, writes and researches local history.

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