The final whistle sounded and Barcelona Femeni’s players began to jump around and hug each other in a circle.
The players gathered for a team photo with all the staff while, sliding across the grass, Claudia Pina, the star of the match with two goals, ran from her interview with Catalan broadcaster TV3 to get involved. Happiness filled the Johan Cruyff stadium with the team through to another Champions League semi-final.
Four days after their first ever defeat to Real Madrid — at Madrid’s 19th attempt — Barca’s second defeat this season in Liga F, Pere Romeu’s team showed no mercy to Wolfsburg. With a 4-1 lead from the trip to Germany, they were in control in the tie, but they bounced back from that rare defeat against Madrid in style in front of their fans with a 6-1 win to progress 10-2 on aggregate.
This Barca team are not used to losing, and defeats tend to weigh more heavily on them than other sides — although they remain four points clear in the league. But losing to Madrid at Montjuic after beating them 18 times in a row was a shock.
“A defeat always leaves you shaken,” Alexia Putellas said after the game on DAZN. “We’ll learn from this.”
They proved they are quick learners by dismantling Wolfsburg and proved they are still the team to beat in the Champions League, despite not being the force they were in winning the last two European crowns.
Pina after scoring her second, and Barca’s fifth (Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
The atmosphere in the Johan Cruyff stadium was as if nothing had happened four days earlier. It was an important fixture against respected rivals and two-time winners of the Champions League.
The first time Barca faced the German side was in their second appearance in the Champions League in March 2014. In their debut season in the European competition in 2012-13, Barca lost 7-0 on aggregate to Arsenal in the round of 32.
The following season they prepared themselves to try to be more competitive in Europe and beat Brondby and FC Zurich before meeting Wolfsburg. It was the golden age of the German national women’s team and the defeat felt inevitable.
Wolfsburg ran them ragged to win 5-0 on aggregate. It was a reality check for Barca fans, who saw that their team were thriving in Spain but were light years away from being competitive in Europe. And there the seed was sown to give the team the necessary preparation so that, in a few years’ time, they could compete against the best in Europe.
The changing of the guard came when Barca beat Wolfsburg in the 2023 Champions League final in Eindhoven — coming from 2-0 down at half-time to win 3-2.
With that in mind, Barca did not hold back in the second leg. They were 2-0 up inside 20 minutes thanks to two goals from Salma Paralluelo.
Their goals were followed by those of Esmee Brugts, two from Pina, including a stunning free-kick, and a powerful strike from another dead ball from Mapi Leon in the 91st minute that hit the crossbar before going in.
This is the seventh consecutive season in which the Catalans have qualified for the Champions League semi-finals — a record for any team in the competition, surpassing Lyon’s record of six.
The first time was when they reached the final in Budapest, where Lyon beat them 4-1 in 2019. But since 2021 they have won three Champions League titles in the past four seasons, a historic quadruple last season (Liga F, the Copa de la Reina, the Women’s Champions League and the Supercopa de Espana) and four Ballons d’Or, two each for Putellas and Aitana Bonmati.
Barca are chasing a third successive Champions League title (David Ramos/Getty Images)
They may have lost some of the glow up they had last season and next face Chelsea in the last four, the team they wanted to avoid.
Barcelona fear English teams more and more. They are aware the WSL has stepped up its game since 2022 and they see the English top-flight as the benchmark for European leagues.
In recent seasons, Manchester City and Chelsea have put them in a tight spot. Last season, they even lost 1-0 at Montjuic to Chelsea, then coached by Emma Hayes, but, yet again, they bounced back to win 2-0 at Stamford Bridge.
As they showed in that 2023 final against Wolfsburg, they have grown in the face of adversity. They are no longer the team that failed to react against Lyon in the 2022 final in Turin, when they lost 3-1.
These semi-finals are probably the closest they have been in years, and Chelsea, who have reached another level under Sonia Bompastor, will have taken note of their defeat against Real Madrid.
Barcelona, however, have shown that in a league where they know they are going to win every season, it is good for them to taste defeat so as not to become over-confident.
Once they have shaken this off, and with the sporting respect they have for Chelsea, the outlook will be totally different.
“The essence of this team is ambition,” Paralluelo said to the Spanish TV channel TVE after the game. How far will their ambition takes them this time?
(Photo: Barcelona’s players celebrate at full-time. Alex Caparros/Getty Images)