FC Barcelona won the fourth Women’s Champions League in its history by dominating OL Lyonnes 4-0 in the final on Saturday in Oslo, thanks to doubles from Ewa Pajor and Salma Paralluelo. With this success in C1, the Catalans have achieved an impressive quadruple this season, having already won La Liga, the Queen’s Cup and the Spanish Super Cup.
Wendie Renard’s Lyonnaises, muzzled by the Catalan midfielder, were never really able to conquer their ninth European title as they had the ambition and will have to very quickly digest their disappointment to win the French championship on Friday in the First League final against Paris FC.
If the Fenottes reign supreme over France, they still have a significant margin to make up before being able to dominate Europe again, having not won the C1 since 2022. FC Barcelona and its “queen” Alexia Putellas, at the end of her contract in June and who perhaps played her last meeting with the Blaugrana in Oslo, have not yet planned to give them back their throne.
Surface Vixen
The Catalan club owes a lot to its Polish striker Ewa Pajor, cursed in the C1 finals, a competition she lost five times while playing for Wolfsburg and last year with Barça against Arsenal, initially clumsy in the first half before becoming clinical in the second.
Perfectly served by her playmaker Patri Guijarro, Pajor, already the tournament’s top scorer with nine goals, beat her former teammate Ingrid Engen, who moved from Barcelona to Lyon at the start of the season, and adjusted Christiane Endler, the Lyon goalkeeper to open the scoring (1-0, 55th).
It’s her again, as a surface vixen and while Barcelona had finally put its paw on the final, who doubled the lead thanks to a back pass from Salma Paralluelo in the middle of a beleaguered Lyon defense (2-0, 69th).
Cata Coll, impassable
In the first period, however, OL Lyonnes, already in trouble during the first quarter of an hour, thought about opening the score from a set piece when Selma Bacha found the head of its captain Wendie Renard, who will not win a ninth Champions League this season, in the Catalan area.
Cata Coll, impassable throughout the match, managed to repel the first salvo, but could do nothing when Lindsey Heaps emerged in the second blade to propel the ball into the back of the net. A moment of fear then ran through the Ullevaal Stadion in Oslo, largely won over to the Catalan cause, very quickly followed by enormous relief, when the video referee revealed an offside position by the American and invalidated the goal (14th). Lyon’s luck has passed.
A long torture
And the second half was just one long torture after Pajor’s two goals. Demobilized, Jonatan Giraldez’s players let those of Pere Romeu, his former assistant, have fun, notably the sprinter Paralluelo, also the author of a double at the end of the match (90th, 90th+3), while the outcome of the match was already sealed.
For another year, Barça, who played their sixth Champions League final in a row in Oslo, confirmed their supremacy on the European scene.
