Having suffered plenty of headaches in the past at Barcelona’s expense, Chelsea would normally have celebrated a 1-1 draw with them in the Women’s Champions League.
But this was a missed opportunity.
Chelsea were the better team that night, dominating most of the first half and creating many scoring opportunities.
They led for eight minutes before failing to clear a corner and allowing Ewa Pajor to pounce on the loose ball, canceling out Ellie Carpenter’s delightful opener.
Australia’s Carpenter should have also scored the winning goal, but her close-range shot went wide with 10 minutes left and only the goalkeeper could score.
Perhaps it was at that moment that coach Sonia Bompastor knew her chance to beat Barcelona was gone.
Substitute Catarina Macario also had a goal disallowed for a slight offside, and when the final whistle finally blew, the Blues boss shook her head in frustration as her team fell to sixth place in the league stage standings, two points behind their Spanish visitors in first place.
This was an impressive performance and a drastic improvement on their 8-2 aggregate defeat to Barcelona in last season’s semi-finals, but their lack of ruthlessness ultimately proved costly and denied them the victory they craved.
“I think it’s frustrating not to have won the game, especially when you look at the statistics and the opportunities we had,” Bopastor said.
“We had opportunities to win, so I’m frustrated for that reason, but overall there were also a lot of positives to take away.
“We know that in the Champions League and in important games we have to be clinical. We have talked about that and my players are putting in a lot of effort.
“I’m very pleased with the performance. Everyone worked hard and I think when we play at this level, we can put together performances like this.”
