Chelsea cling tight to WCL hopes after Graham Hansen gives Barcelona edge

Emma Hayes’ Champions League dream remains alive. Chelsea’s 1-0 home defeat to Barcelona in their semi-final first leg provided enough positives and a narrow enough margin for the second leg at Camp Nou to look slightly less daunting.

More than 700 days since the 2021 final, where Chelsea succumbed to a humiliating 4-0 defeat to Barça, there was a chance for a little redemption at Stamford Bridge. Of the starting XI that played in that bruising final in Gothenburg, six were on the team sheet to start in London – with the injured Fran Kirby and Millie Bright absent and Pernille Harder and Sophie Ingle on the bench – of those who are still at the club.

Then, Guro Reiten and Erin Cuthbert came off the bench in the second half, but they are both now fixtures of Chelsea’s starting line-up. There was surprise at the omission of the potent Lauren James, who began on the bench, with Hayes choosing Jelena Cankovic over the England star perhaps to provide more defensive cover to right-back Ève Périsset – Chelsea were undone on the flanks in 2021.

Two years ago, it took 33 seconds for Barcelona to take the lead and, at Stamford Bridge, there was another early sucker punch. This time the Blues held out for three minutes and 11 seconds, with Caroline Graham Hansen cutting inside from the right, shifting past Melanie Leupolz and lashing powerfully beyond a diving Ann-Katrin Berger before Cuthbert could close her down. It had been a wicked deflection off Leupolz that looped over Berger and gave Barcelona the lead in that final before Chelsea crumbled, conceding three more by the 36th minute. This time, though, they held it together.

This time too, Chelsea were an arguably weaker side – without Harder, Kirby and the departed Ji So-yun