Women's Champions League: Barcelona Femini are the best football team in the world - The Warm-Up

THURSDAY'S BIG STORIES Dedication's What You Need Ad/> It's a cruel thing, hope. Just as they had in the first leg, Real Madrid took the lead over Barcelona last night. And, just as in the first leg, they got roundly punished for it.

The comeback was on, the Camp Nou was silenced, the competition was — oh, Barcelona have scored. Oh, Barcelona have scored again. And again.

And again. TransfersBarca, Real, Juve? Where should Pogba go to rebuild his career?24/03/2022 AT 12:51 From 2-1 down to 5-2 up in just over 20 minutes. You could call it brutal; you could call it, on the balance of play, fair enough.

That Barcelona Femení were better than their opponents is, by now, almost a given. They won because they always win, because they are better, and just provoking the thought «hang on» is more than most opponents manage. But when 90,000 people turn up to watch, the occasion demands a little narrative shape.

All noises seem louder after a moment of silence. And the Camp Nou was loud. The game sold out in four days, and the official attendance of 91,553 is being hailed as a record for a women's football game.

This is a little peculiar, given that the attendance for the final of the 1971 World Cup, Denmark against Mexico in the Azteca Stadium, is recorded as somewhere around 110,000. But that tournament came under the auspices of the Federation of Independent European Female Football, 20 years before FIFA's first women's World Cup and 11 years before UEFA's first Euros. There is an inconvenient history being quietly downplayed here; a present erasure of erasures past.