Emma Hayes' post-match press conference was one of mixed emotions, her face a mask of the steely, tight-lipped caution that often characterises the way she talks about these kinds of games.
There was none of the bonhomie that can pepper a Hayes press conference when the Chelsea manager is on form. The message here was “We're in the tie”, repeated like a catchphrase from a manager who regularly warns that teams cannot win a Champions League tie in the first leg but can easily make the kind of mistakes to lose one.
To go to the return leg with a semblance of hope intact was all Hayes had wanted against a Barcelona side with a goal difference of +100 in the league and who won this last meeting with four first-half goals. That was Chelsea's first — and to date only — Champions League final.
Chelsea have that hope, albeit slimly, given they will now have to go to the Camp Nou, a stadium at which Barcelona Women have never lost and never scored fewer than three goals.
Perhaps that was why Hayes seemed to admit here to a handful of small regrets; the kind of sliding doors moments on which Champions League semi-finals can spin.
What if Chelsea had started more aggressively, and been first to the pass from which Caroline Graham Hansen sent the ball looping inexorably beyond the reach of the Chelsea goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger for the tie's only goal? What if the home side had made more of those moments when Sam Kerr and Guro Reiten were unleashed beyond the Barcelona back line?
Graham Hansen celebrates after scoring the game's only goal (Photo: Steve Bardens/UEFA via Getty Images)
“We had a deliberate plan to go forward, and I don't think we did that very well,” Hayes said. “We skipped the pass we were supposed to make too often. We needed to be better on the ball in the right moments. You're not going to go and pepper them with the same number of chances they get on you. That's why it has to be a perfect game. I was disappointed with our forward play but we'll work on it. I'm grateful to be in a position where the tie wasn't over after 25 minutes.”
This Chelsea team were light years removed from the one that capitulated against these opponents in the 2021 Champions League final. At what point did Barcelona realise that? Maybe they knew it all along; Keira Walsh had said she was anticipating a far more resilient Chelsea side than the one of two years ago.
Chelsea have not this season hit the heights of performance that the dizzying combination of Fran Kirby and Sam Kerr took them to two years ago but, on balance, they are probably better at grinding out results when the odds are against them. A more competitive Women's Super League – they had no bona fide competition for the title the last time they played Barcelona – has seen them find new solutions, and brought an edge they didn't always know they needed.
They needed it when Graham Hansen curled the ball past Berger after three minutes, with ease enough to underline why Barcelona's biggest frustration is the misconception from outsiders that it all comes to them effortlessly.
You could feel the anxiety enveloping Stamford Bridge, and the collective slipping back to that night in Sweden 706 days ago when Chelsea had conceded their first goal inside 120 seconds. Among the goals that night was one that saw each Chelsea defender facing in different directions when the ball crossed the line. It called to mind the sign in the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in The Simpsons' title sequence: zero minutes without a Barcelona goal.
That was the lone blot on Chelsea's defensive copybook, and the women's game will see few better individual displays in that position this season than the likes of Maren Mjelde and Magdalena Eriksson offered here.
Amid the blitzed runs and deft, nimble feet of Lucy Bronze, Aitana Bonmati, Fridolina Rolfo and Geyse, Chelsea truly battened down the hatches, like the heroes in a horror film barricading themselves to safety with dining chairs and antique dressers. When Graham Hansen demonstrated that contortionist-like agility to get herself where other liquids can't, Mjelde would sprout additional limbs for the decisive intervention. Niamh Charles and Jess Carter — part of a makeshift back four including a forward at right-back and a right-footer at left-back that night in Sweden — demonstrated their growth.
“The team as a whole defended as well as they could,” Hayes said. “They executed everything as we asked them – eventually. We limited them to as few chances as we possibly could have. The back three should all be very proud of themselves. They did the best they could.”
Hayes said her side needed to play a 'perfect game' against Barcelona on Saturday (Photo: Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)
Chelsea's midfield — a far more physical proposition than two years ago — sought to exploit the areas behind the marauding wingback Rolfo and break quickly against Barcelona's high line. Sam Kerr was an obvious out ball for Chelsea in those moments when Rolfo moved centrally but Barcelona were unprepared for her effectiveness at linking up with Reiten.
The Barcelona manager Jonatan Giraldez admitted afterwards that they had to adjust to prevent the balls over the top to Kerr and Reiten. “It was starting to become dangerous,” he said, in what was a telling choice of words.
That there was no material reward for their efforts will haunt Hayes on a day when Melanie Leupolz and Erin Cuthbert looked far better equipped to handle Barcelona than the Chelsea side of old. Hayes' visible frustration when those moves didn't quite come off betrayed how vital those chances were. Barcelona will not be as generous on their own turf.
Then Barcelona lapsed into keeping possession with their languid style, predicated on the idea that opponents can never hurt them if they don't have the ball. It felt as though Chelsea would have had greater success taking a TV remote from a puppy than regaining possession from Graham Hansen. The problem for sides trying to win the ball back is that the only thing Barcelona love more than the ball is space. Substitute Marta Torrejon's late shot against the post and Asisat Oshoala's 11th-hour chance could have pushed the game beyond Chelsea.
That they didn't is, after all, exactly what Hayes wanted. Ideally, Chelsea should have dictated the pace of this match given there will be no opportunity to do so next week, but that was always a tall ask.
Perhaps the biggest indicator of their transformation is the fact that they actually attempted almost half the passes they did in the Champions League final: 252 compared to 480. Comfortable, now, without dominating the ball, and more decisive. If only they had been more clinical.
Hayes would not delude anyone about the scale of the challenge ahead on Thursday. There remains the worry, justified or otherwise, that 1-0 will be too much of a mountain to climb in the away leg.
The silver lining for Chelsea amid the ignominy of the 2021 Champions League final was that Hayes could have no real regrets. Nothing she or her depleted Chelsea squad did would have changed the scoreline. The cruel sting of this tie — so much closer, so much more competitive — is that there is far more to lose. It will hurt 10,000 times more. This is the tension that comes with closing the gap to one of the greatest sides the women's game has ever seen.
“I didn't see anything I don't already know,” Hayes concluded. “You have to suffer. You will be without the ball. One switch-off and positional error cost us the goal.
“I think we limited them to as few chances as we possibly could and I'll take that going into the next game. I wanted to go into the next leg in the tie, and we're in the tie.”
teoabdmos
264
Força Barça... Chelsea is no match for the Queens of the pitch 🙌💎🙌