FC Barcelona 3–2 Wolfsburg: Champions of Europe!

Eindhoven has a place in Barça hearts forever. Because that is where the women have won their second Champions League! And they did it in epic fashion. The spectre of Turin twelve months ago hung over the game as they found themselves trailing Wolfsburg by two goals at half time. But they did what they failed to do a year ago and produced a spectacular comeback that people will be talking about for years.

The players were barely back on the pitch before two goals in rapid succession, both converted by Patri Guijarro, had the sides back all square.
And then Fridolina Rolfo claimed the winner with 20 minutes to go.

After first winning the trophy in Gothenburg in 2021, Barça now have their second title. But unlike the first, which they celebrated in front of an empty stadium at the height of the Covid crisis, this time they could share the moment with the thousands and thousands of blaugrana clad supporters who have been flooding the Dutch city of Eindhoven all weekend.

Early setback

But what a game it was. And it could not have got off to a more frustrating start. It was just three minutes old when Ewa Pajor, the top goalscorer in the competition, added one more to her account by pouncing on a moment of early confusion in the Barça defence and producing a scorching finish to fire the German side into the lead.

Barça’s response to the early setback was immediate. The pressure on the Wolfsburg goal was strong and insistent, but despite creating a chance after chance the equaliser just didn’t want to come.

Instead, the blaugrana women got caught on the break and in practically their only other foray into the Barça area of the whole first half, Wolfsburg scored again.

Pajor provided the assist and German national team captain Alexandra Popp headed home.

Guijarro once and twice!

Barça were bringing almost all the ideas, creativity and chances to the game. And yet they were two goals down at the break. It was hard to understand why. The only answer is that football can sometimes be a very cruel thing.

They needed to turn things around quick, but nobody expected them to do it quite so quickly. Within five minutes they were level!

Mapi Leon and Graham Hansen were both sensational in the build-up as Guijarro finished things off to throw the Catalans straight back into contention.

Mere moments later, another power-play down the right resulted in Bonmati popping the ball onto Guijarro’s head and that was two goals for her and two goals for Barça!

Rolfo wins it

In the blink of an eyelid, Barça were back level and the mood in Eindhoven had swung full circle from a light green party to a blaugrana one.

Barça were on such a high and Wolfsburg so utterly shell-shocked that it looked like the Catalans were going to continue dancing all over the Germans.

Instead Wolsfburg had a number of chances to get back ahead, before Barça finally did find their third. The Germans made a mess of a clearance and in the goal-line confusion that followed, Rolfö ended up converting against her former club.

Cue madness amongst the thousands of travelling Barça supporters. Twenty minutes to go and Barça had one hand on the trophy!

It’s all over!!

And those were going to be twenty very tense minutes indeed. Barça did have chances to make absolutely certain of victory with a fourth goal, but most of those minutes were dedicated to a fabulous effort to neutralise Wolfburg’s charge to nick one back.

Brilliant defending and brilliant goalkeeping from Sandra Panos did the rest and after an injury time that seemed to last a lifetime, the Welsh referee blew her whistle one last time and Barça were champions!