Double trouble as Barca’s Pajor and Paralluelo seal Champions League

It has become the quintessential Champions League final of the modern era. The meeting of Barcelona and Lyon at the final stage of European competition is not quite an annual occurrence but with its fourth playing in eight years, it has become a fixture to set your watch by.

It would be easy to feel bored by it, if it were not quite so compelling. The build up to the game was already mired in debate about whether the game should be played in Norway. Aitana Bonmatí had suggested that the size of the stadium was a shame – its capacity is 28,000, making it far smaller than the 52,000 seater it was played in last year in Lisbon – as well as the distance to travel. It did nothing to dispute the notion that Barcelona players can sometimes be a bit sniffy about the idea that people other than them play football. Penny for the thoughts of Aitana’s Norwegian teammate Caroline Graham Hansen.

For Barcelona, beating Lyon in Bilbao two years ago was their coming of age moment, even if that was their third Champions League title. But old wounds linger and Barcelona probably take a more cautious view of Lyon than some of their European counterparts, despite their success against them. Perhaps that is in part because their own experience of losing to Arsenal last year was a reminder that good teams can be fallible, so it is never worth taking anyone too lightly.

That is only exacerbated when your opposition team ends up packed with those who were until recently considered colleagues.

It has been clear from the start who Michele Kang has been looking to model her multi-club group on. She first hired Markel Zubizaretta from Barcelona to become her global sporting director before poaching their manager Jonatan Giráldez too. Giráldez headed to America initially, to manage Washington Spirit before landing at Lyon. Even for her London City Lionesses team, she decided to move on from Jocelyn Prêcheur halfway through the season in favour of UD Tenerife’s Eder Maestre, reportedly because she thought he would be better able to bring about the style of football she wanted her teams to play. If rumours are to be believed, there are also offers for two out of contract Barcelona players in Alexia Putellas and Mapi León on the table to bring them to the glamorous environs of Bromley.

Yet Giráldez has not yet managed to create a team that mimics his Barcelona one that won two Champions League finals in his three years at the club (the one he lost was to, predictably, Lyon). If anything, his Lyon team this year has been not about possession but about their ability to counter-attack. It was strange to see Barcelona then looking so similar, resorting to playing the ball long to striker Ewa Pajor.

It was clear that Giráldez knew what his Lyon team needed to do if they were to beat this Barcelona side. Melchie Dumornay, arguably the best player in the world this season, was sacrificed in attack in order to form part of a robust pressing midfield unit which limited Barcelona’s time on the ball. Yet no one would have known better than Giráldez himself that his opposition tends to find a moment or two, no matter how well you restrict them. Then you have to pray they don’t take it.

That is why Barcelona have proven to be rather good at winning the Champions League in recent years. How inappropriate then that their match winner has historically been terrible at it.

Pajor was playing in her sixth Champions League final, having lost her previous five. It was a sign of what was to come when she met a ball from Putellas to lob Christiane Endler in the Lyon goal only for it to go wide. When she got her chance in the second half, she took the ball into her path superbly, finishing into the far corner with aplomb. These were not the actions of a woman who should, for all intents and purposes, be traumatised by the very act of turning up to a Champions League final, but rather actions of a footballer who knew she was going to become the first woman to score in every knock-out match in the competition in 16 years. She added a second 14 minutes later to take her tally of goals to 11, firmly leveraging the Golden Boot out of Alessia Russo’s hands.

It might be Pajor’s name on the scoresheet but she would not have had the opportunity to put Barcelona in the driving seat were it not for the immaculate performance from Cata Coll. The 25-year-old goalkeeper, who has been at Barcelona since she was 18, made a number of impressive saves to keep Barcelona free from any kind of real pressure as they saw out the game.

For Kang and the Lyon team she is attempting to reinvigorate to become the dominant force it once was, this is the model that matters most. Pajor did not come cheap with Barcelona paying a reported £480,000 release clause to bring her to Catalonia. Yet the combination with the collection of the best Spanish talent on offer has helped them to acquire a squad depth that means even when they are not at their sparkling best, they find a way to crack open the door. Once it is open a bit they tend to rush through it. It will have left Kang plenty to ponder on as she watched Salma Paralluelo curl in Barcelona’s third and banish those Lyon-shaped ghosts a bit further. She might have retired to the hospitality suite when Paralluelo added a fourth in the 94th minute.

Photograph by Odd Andersen /AFP via Getty Images