The Final Step to the Summit: How Barcelona (Finally) Triumphed over Olympique Lyonnais
Over the last decade, women’s football in Europe has been dominated by one team: Olympique Lyonnais. The French outfit won six of the last ten Champions League finals and currently have a stranglehold in the French first division, winning all but one title since 2007, acclaiming a 14-year domestic league title streak until the 2020-21 season. Also considered the model representative of running a football club in the women’s scene, the contributions this club has made over the years are enormous. However, despite its dominance and might over all other clubs in Europe, a new powerhouse has been making shockwaves across the Pyrenees and its own dominance has been a sight to behold for all onlookers: FC Barcelona.
The rise of FC Barcelona
Having secured four league titles in a row between 2012 and 2015, Barcelona decided to finally professionalize its women’s division. This was done due to the lack of pay within the women’s game as well as the inability to compete with the best teams in Europe via the Champions League, which have been won mostly by French (the aforementioned Olympique Lyon) and German (Turbine Potsdam, 1. FFC Frankfurt, FCR 2009 Duisburg) teams. As such, the team now known as FC Barcelona Femeni would have its own division, with them playing in the Estadi Johan Cruyff, a 6000-capacity stadium just outside Barcelona, and having an exclusive deal with tools company Stanley. Despite the measures taken for professionalization, the club did not see league success until the 2019-20 season as they finally broke the three-year-long streak by Atletico Madrid. At this stage of the club’s growth, Barcelona had not only local heroes such as captain Vicky Losada and Jennifer Hermoso in their disposal, but also international superstars such as English forward Toni Duggan and Dutch winger Lieke Martens. The latter of which was also the highest-paid women’s footballer at the time and with this new level of superstardom, FCB Femeni would also take part in the pre-season tour together with the men’s team, which had, at the time, the likes of Luis Suarez, Gerard Pique, and multiple Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi.
Image 1: Aitana Bonmati (left) and Alexia Putellas (right), both graduates of Barcelona’s academy, La Masia
Alexia and the talents of La Masia
Even though Barcelona had a star-studded lineup in the late 2010s, something has been brewing behind the scenes at the “talent factory” known as La Masia, which had, in the men’s side, brought the aforementioned Pique and Messi as well as Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, and Cesc Fabregas, to superstardom. Unsurprisingly, this has also been true for the women’s side as one player emerged as the crème de la crème within the FCB Femeni ranks: Alexia Putellas. The lifelong Barcelona supporter had been a regular for the team ever since the 2015-16 season, aged 21 at that time, scoring at least thirteen goals in all competitions every season until the 2021-22 season. The emergence of Putellas led to an explosion of La Masia talents being brought over to the main team and reducing the reliance of foreign superstars in the process (even though some key positions were still filled by them over the years), with other notable alumni in the current FCB Femeni side including Aitana Bonmati, Patricia Guijarro, and Ona Batlle (the latter of which was actually let go by Barcelona before being brought back in 2023). To this day, La Masia is still the leading football academy in the realms of women’s football, and its contributions to the growth of FC Barcelona as well as world football in general is almost unparalleled.
Image 2: Olympique Lyon’s victory celebrations after winning the Champions League final in 2022
Lyon: Barcelona’s kryptonite
At this point in history, Barcelona has already established a near-invincible stranglehold on women’s football in Spain, with one season (2021-22) being the most impressive, winning all 30 games and scoring 159 goals along the way. Also, they have won two Champions League trophies in 2021 and 2023 against Chelsea and Wolfsburg, respectively. Despite this, this period also saw two heartbreaking final defeats to the hands of, you guessed it, Olympique Lyon. The French outfit is undefeated against Barcelona in three attempts, two of which were in finals in 2019 and 2022. It seemed like the towering shadow of Wendie Renard and the free-scoring Ada Hegerberg were too much for the Catalan team to handle. In the 2019 final, Hegerberg scored a hat-trick and along with an early goal from German playmaker Dzsenifer Marozsan, Lyon won 4-1 after Nigerian striker Asisat Oshoala scored a consolation in the 89th minute. This scoreline would then nearly be repeated in 2022 as this time, Lyon won 3-1 after three goals were scored in the first half through Amandine Henry, the aforementioned Hegerberg, and American forward Catarina Macario. This time, Alexia Putellas scored the consolation goal in the 41st minute as that would be her last goal until some time in 2023 due to an anterior cruciate ligament injury while training for the European championship in England.
Image 3: Aitana Bonmati’s celebration after scoring the first goal in the 2024 final.
2024: The final showdown
While Barcelona won the Champions League in the 2022-23 season through a comeback against VfL Wolfsburg, they did not encounter Lyon along the way as they had been knocked out by Arsenal in the quarter-finals. As such, revenge had to wait in the following season. Even though Putellas had returned from her ACL injury, another setback sidelined her once again, this time until March 2024. Despite this setback, the team has kind of adapted to playing without her, with fellow La Masia graduate Bonmati taking the reins and the individual accolades for 2023. The key trio of Bonmati, Patricia Guijarro, and English record transfer Keira Walsh was essential in Barcelona’s pursuit of consecutive European glory. The trio, along with rising star Salma Paralluelo and the most prolific player in Europe, Caroline Graham Hansen, struck fear into opponents even before kick-off, with the latter scoring 31 goals and assisting another 27 in all competitions. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that Barcelona would reach the final without any hiccups, that is until Chelsea decided to turn up to the Estadi Lluis Companys and scored a goal to take the lead in the semi-final tie. However, Barcelona would turn it around through goals from Bonmati and Fridolina Rolfö from the penalty spot, securing that long-awaited revenge tie on Olympique Lyon. Taking place on May 25th in San Mames in Bilbao, the final was a tight affair as Barcelona had more of the ball while Lyon had more chances on goal in the first half. However, come the second half, the Blaugrana became more dangerous and in a defensive lull, a through ball by Mariona Caldentey set up Aitana Bonmati to strike past Christiane Endler, sending San Mames into raptures. Over the next twenty-five minutes, Lyon tried to claw back the deficit, with the likes of Melchie Dumornay, Delphine Cascarino, and Ada Hegerberg attempting shots on goal but to no avail. It seemed like Bonmati’s goal would be the highlight of the match, but one moment trumped over them all. In the 91st minute, coach Jonatan Giraldez decided to bring on Alexia Putellas, who has been more of a squad player as of late, and taking the armband from vice-captain Patri Guijarro, the captain duly delivered a moment that reverberated throughout Spain and beyond. From the left side, Claudia Pina received the ball from midfield, and after playing a one-two with fellow substitute Ona Batlle, Pina played a cut-back pass towards Alexia, which she duly smashed towards the top of the net. Securing the win once and for all and the breaking of a decade-long curse, the player affectionately known as La Reina took her shirt off and ran the length of the pitch to celebrate with the other players and the Barcelona fans. Even though she received a yellow card for “excessive celebration”, it was worth it as Barcelona won their third Champions League title, establishing themselves as the ultimate team to beat for years to come.
