As the rain relentlessly tumbled to the Stamford Bridge turf, Emma Hayes and her Chelsea players trudged forlornly around the ground, the pain etched on their faces knowing how close they had come. A matter of inches the wrong side of the post, a series of questionable refereeing decisions and a key injury to Mayra Ramírez who had caused Barcelona so many issues at the Estadi Olímpic just a week earlier. Millimetres, a series of moments … so close but so far once again.
The Champions League is the one trophy that has eluded Emma Hayes in her 12-year tenure. The one that, despite her protestations, she so desperately wanted to complete her haul of winning every available trophy at a club she had built from the ground up.
It will provide as much pain as pride for the Chelsea manager that her team pushed Barcelona so close. Although it will be hard to come to terms with now, both semi‑final performances this time round were an illustration of how far a seemingly insurmountable gap has narrowed.
Three years ago, her side had never looked further away from a team widely regarded as the best in the world. The hurt of that May evening in 2021 on the Gothenburg pitch has lived long in the memory when Hayes witnessed her side fall so far short of the Spanish champions in their first and only Champions League final appearance. It was a chastening moment, a comfortable 4-0 defeat, that provided invaluable learnings for Hayes, her coaching team and players.
The progression has been evident. In front of a record crowd for Chelsea Women at Stamford Bridge, her side played with bravery and energy against a Barcelona team who were wounded from their first defeat on home soil since February 2019. The Chelsea manager opted to play the same system in the return leg, her three centre-backs and two wing-backs set up to smother the attacking threat of Caroline Graham Hansen and Fridolina Rolfö down their respective flanks. It was always going to be difficult to achieve the same levels against a team that can spin you around in circles – a deft turn from Aitana Bonmatí here and there; a breaking run from Salma Paralluelo to instantly put any defender on the back foot.
It was a night where Chelsea needed everything to go their way and as the game progressed, it became evident that wasn’t going to be the case. Hayes had called for perfection from her side and their wastefulness in front of goal felt like missed opportunities. Erin Cuthbert skimmed the top of the bar from an unmarked position. Sjoeke Nüsken somehow turned Ashley Lawrence’s cross off the post. The differences were small, but they proved crucial.
Add to that the performance of Iuliana Demetrescu in the middle. Kadeisha Buchanan was sent off after picking up a second yellow card with half an hour left to play, leaving Chelsea and their fans clearly incensed. “That was probably the worst decision in Uefa Women’s Champions League history,” Hayes stated. Chelsea will feel equally hard done by over the penalty that followed 10 minutes later when Bonmatí was deemed to have been brought down in the box.
Chelsea arguably performed admirably after going down to 10 but the task was made monumental. “It’s hard enough when you’ve got 11 but when you’ve got 10 it’s virtually impossible,” Hayes said.
The pain of this result will linger for a while among this group of Chelsea players. A Champions League final in Bilbao was meant to be Hayes’s final hurrah, the perfect send-off for a manager who has given so much to the progression of the club.
An end of an era awaits in just a couple of the weeks. The Women’s Super League remains the sole trophy left for them to claim and there is plenty to build on from this moment.
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A raucous sold-out Stamford Bridge was an added positive, a historic moment in the development of the club. It seems apt that it happened for Hayes’s final game at the stadium, a sign of how far the club has come and how there is so much more to come. “The crowd were fantastic, they really were,” Hayes said. “I could feel their energy and they were really pushing us. I hope the club builds on it and they make sure they return.”
