Last May, after Barcelona defeated Lyon in San Mamés (Bilbao) in the Champions League final, there was a lot of talk about the significance of the victory over the eight-time European champion. It was the first time that the Catalans defeated the French team, against whom they had lost two continental finals in 2019 and 2022, and it was also the first time that they won two consecutive Champions Leagues. Although the players and the coaching staff of the Barça team passed over the debate of whether the hegemony in Europe had changed with the victory, continental football dominance has belonged to Barça for years. The club, even though it is still far from eight dried apricots of the almighty Lyon, has won three of the last four Champions Leagues, has appeared in the last four finals of the tournament and starts this new edition – it debuts on Wednesday in Manchester against City (9:00 p.m., Dazn) – as the great favorite to lift the title again. title with the most expensive squad in the world, valued at almost 5.8 million euros, well above the other two teams called to fight for the trophy, Chelsea (4.3) and Lyon (4.14), according to the specialized website Soccerdonna.
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In Barça’s debut against the English League runners-up there will be two former City players: midfielder Keira Walsh, who arrived at the Barça club in 2022 to replace Alexia Putellas after her serious injury, and perhaps goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck, who He landed in Barcelona this summer after several months off the playing field – he has not yet made his debut – due to a stroke in the occipital lobe.
Beyond the reunions, the team, which after the departure of Jonatan Giráldez to the United States is led this season by Pere Romeu —was part of the staff of the Galician coach for three years—, lost two regular starters in June such as Mariona Caldentey, who went to Arsenal, and Lucy Bronze, who reinforced Chelsea, but was strengthened in the transfer market. He signed the Polish Ewa Pajor, one of the best forwards in the world and top scorer in the F League with six goals in five games, and the young Portuguese pearl Kika Nazareth.
In a squad full of stars – with two Ballon d’Or winners such as Aitana Bonmatí and Alexia Putellas, renewed in recent months – there are no curves of any kind expected to overcome the first phase, where they will also face two more affordable rivals such as Austrian Pölten and Swedish Hammarby, a debutant in the Champions League. From the quarterfinals, to which the first two from each of the four groups enter, there will already be VAR, as in the last two seasons, but in the group stage video refereeing will not be available this year either. “The use of VAR in European competitions implies technical, operational and logistical challenges,” say UEFA, the body that regulates the competition.
If Barcelona has been the great dominator of the tournament in the last five years, Real Madrid, which was born in 2020, is among the 16 best in Europe for the fourth time this year —next year the Champions League will change format with a league made up of 18 teams—after beating Sporting de Portugal in the previous round. The club is seeking its second qualification for the quarterfinals, a round that it only managed to reach in the 2021-2022 season, when Barça defeated it with an overall result of 8-3. White, who last Friday lost midfielder Sandie Toletti for about two months due to a partial tear of the external ligament in her right knee, crashed in the last two group stages: two years ago they added two wins and two draws and were third, behind Chelsea and PSG, and last year they were last, earning one point out of a possible 18 after conceding five defeats.
With the best squad in its history – valued at 3.3 million euros, according to Soccerdonna – and an exciting start to the season with seven wins in as many games, Real, who are expected to make a qualitative leap this campaign, have ahead of them to one of the biggest bones of the competition, Chelsea, with whom they already faced each other in the two previous editions, in addition to Twente – winner of the Dutch League – and Celtic, a rookie in the Champions League.
Caroline Weir tries to dribble past Canales, the Valencia goalkeeper, last Friday at the Alfredo di Stéfano.Rodrigo Jiménez (EFE)
The Whites make their debut this Tuesday against the champions of the English Women’s Super League at Stamford Bridge (9:00 p.m., Dazn), a stadium with a capacity for 40,341 spectators. “Just saying it makes my hair stand on end, we really want to make our debut,” Teresa Abelleira, one of Madrid’s captains, said on Friday after defeating Valencia at the Alfredo di Stéfano. In their other two visits to London, Real fell against the blueswho this summer were not only reinforced on the field with the arrivals of Bronze from Barça or Sandy Baltimore from PSG – they also tempted Aitana Bonmatí with a million-dollar offer and were willing to pay the three million euros of the release clause. termination before it was renewed—but they signed Sonia Bopastor for the bench after Emma Hayes, who had been at Chelsea for 12 years, left to manage the American team.
Hayes, a symbol of the London club, won the seven Leagues and the five FA Cups that the clubs have as coach. bluesand they only needed to win the Champions League. They came close to it in 2021, when they lost in the final against Barcelona (4-0), and on four other occasions since 2017 they were shipwrecked in the semifinals. To make up for his departure and in search of the first orejona In its history, Chelsea seduced the Frenchwoman Bompastor, the first woman in history to lift the Champions League as a player (2011 and 2012) and coach (2022). The technician, who won her three Champions Leagues with Lyon, decided to join the London project even though she had one year left on her contract with the club of her life.
Chelsea, this time with Bompastor on the bench, and Lyon, now coached by Australian Joe Montemurro, emerge as the Blaugrana’s main rivals in a tournament in which Arsenal, Bayern, Wolfsburg, City, Roma and Juve also aspire to steal Barça’s throne.
