At the beginning of the second part, when Barça had a hard time against Lyon in San Mamés In the Champions League final, current Ballon d'Or winner Aitana Bonmatí regained the ball almost in the center of the pitch in a counter-attack from the French team. The footballer from Sant Pere de Ribas, only 1.61 m tall, drove through the left zone to the baseline while withstanding one powerful attack after another from the forward Diani. The Spanish midfielder is a player who fools those who don't know her: she has fantastic technique, but also very strong legs and an extraordinary ability to carry the leather close to her foot at maximum speed. Bonmatí hid the ball for Diani and managed to take a corner. Encouraged, she turned to the stands, He raised his hands with angry gestures and asked for the fans' support. to try to put an end to the bad situation after the Lyonnais had earlier approached the goal with Renard's shot that went over the crossbar as soon as he left the dressing room.
2
Cata Coll, Fridolina Rolfö, Irene Paredes, Lucy Bronze, Ingrid Engen, Keira Walsh, Patri Guijarro, Aitana Bonmatí, Mariona Caldentey, Salma Paralluelo and Caroline Graham Hansen
0
Christiane Endler, Ellie Carpenter, Selma Bacha, Vanessa Gilles, Wendie Renard, Daniëlle van de Donk, Damaris Egurrola, Lindsey Horan, Kadidiatou Diani, Delphine Cascarino and Melchie Dumornay
Goals 1-0 min 62: Aitana Bonmatí. 2-0 min 95: Alexia Putellas.
Referee Rebecca Welch
Yellow cards Wendie Renard (min. 69), Alexia Putellas (min. 96) and Christiane Endler (min. 97)
Ten minutes later, Aitana discovered the room behind Damaris Egurrola when Mariona received the ball alone in the middle of the field. Bonmatí started sprinting and his partner leaked the leather. The midfielder controlled the ball about eight yards from the area and drove until she leaned in front of Endler's goal. Almost without an angle he shot with his left foot, the ball grazed Gilles to change direction and sneak into the net. The most decisive player in this Champions League – six goals and six assists in eleven games – and in the world scored the goal that marked the match and above all left a formidable performance – she was voted the best in the final, as in 2021. in which he always worked together, kept the game flowing and showed character when the team needed it. “At home, with all the culés and against Lyon, what more could you want? It's incredible what we're experiencing as a team. I have the privilege of experiencing this with the club of my life. 12 years here I feel it from a very young age,” Aitana said at the end of the game.
The Barça celebration was ended by Alexia Putellas, this side's first great icon, who hit a left-footed shot into the net in the 95th minute to close the scoring, having come off the bench just three minutes earlier. With the goal being Putellas and Aitana – the two great figures of this era of Barça's glory with three dried apricots— remain tied with the top scorers (22) in the club's history in the competition.
This Champions League also meant a kind of relief for Irene Paredes. The Gipuzkoan, who started her career at Real but later signed for Athletic, experienced a painful defeat in Bilbao – in the old San Mamés – with the Lionesses when they lost to Barça on the last day of the competition in 2013 in the match that decided was for the championship, but most importantly In his five seasons at PSG, he suffered like no other from the dominance of Olympique Lyon in France and Europe. The central team – which could only win a cup and a league in Paris due to the hegemony of its rival – lost the 2017 Champions League final against the Lyonnais in the penalty shoot-out and the 2020 semi-final as a Barça player , He felt the same frustration again in 2022 in Turin, a final that left a feeling of monumental disappointment among the culé fans due to the expectations raised in light of what was expected to be the first victory against Lyon and which finally arrived today, two years later .
Paredes took revenge after a very strong tackle from Melchie Dumornay in the opening moments of the match. The Haitian forward collided with the defense and stepped on his left foot. The center was on the ground for over a minute, received assistance and recovered. She continued to ache from the blow – at several moments she made gestures that showed her discomfort – but she recovered, crashing again and again to nullify Lyon's powerful striker, a twenty-year-old physical prodigy – she is one of the fastest players in the world of football – that he has three goals and two assists in the Champions League this season.
The triumph is balsamic for a club that is going through a difficult season in the men's division. Not just for A poker with unprecedented titles – Super Cup, League, Cup and Champions -, but for what it meant for the social masses. More than 35,000 culés attended Bilbao, the second largest mobilization in Barça's history, after the 45,000 who traveled to Seville to witness the 1986 Champions League final loss to Steaua Bucharest. The city was so overrun with Barcelona fans – the tram and buses worked with great difficulty – that on this Saturday's sunny and hot afternoon the attendance record for a Champions League final was broken: 50,827 spectators, more than of the 50,212 that had been in 2012 at the Munich Olympic Stadium during Lyon's victory over Eintracht. Almost as if Barça had played at home.
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