Women’s Champions League: Lyon qualify for the final by eliminating Paris

Published on: 01/05/2022 – 06:56 Lyon, seven times winner, confirmed its return to the fore on Saturday by dominating its national rival, Paris SG (2-1), without contest, to offer itself a 10th final of Women’s Champions League against Barcelona. The players of Olympique Lyonnais qualified for the final of the Champions League, at the expense of Paris SG, thanks to their success, Saturday April 30, during the semi-final return (2-1), at the Parc des princes where a national attendance record was broken. After a white season, without the slightest title, the Lyonnaises made the experience speak six days after a controlled first leg (3-2), in the wake of Ada Hegerberg and Wendie Renard, goalscorers in an incandescent Parc des Princes. Less than two years after their last coronation, the “Fenottes” will therefore already taste the adrenaline of a continental final, on May 21 in Turin. And this one looks good, between the major team of the last decade, OL, and the one who dreams of walking on Europe for the next ten years, defending champion Barça, beaten on Saturday in Wolfsburg 2-0 but qualified after their first leg festival (5-1). A great revenge, too, three years after the 2019 final overflown by OL (4-1). Lyon will travel to Italy with determination, confidence, and at least two certainties: they have never lost to Barça, and they has once again become the spearhead of French women’s football, ahead of PSG, ambitious but too feverish over both matches. Hegerberg and Renard decisive on return injury. He gave in on Saturday against the head game of Hegerberg and Renard, clinics in front of goal on two assists from Selma Bacha (14th, 83rd), despite the equalizer from Marie-Antoinette Katoto (62nd). The Norwegian, top scorer in the history of the C1 (58 goals), even thought to double the bet (56th), but Melvine Malard, passer on the action, was offside with a breath. Dropped in the D1 classification, five points behind OL, PSG are heading straight for a frustrating season, even if the Coupe de France final against Yzeure (D2) is promised to them. The turmoil following the Kheira Hamraoui affair, absent from this double confrontation after an altercation in training last Saturday, will have polluted three of the four confrontations of the season against the Lyon rival, for three defeats. always stayed the course since August, except in the round of 16 of the Coupe de France (3-0 defeat against Paris). He takes his revenge on the quarter-final of C1 last year, won by PSG on away goals. A record attendance Amandine Henry’s partners certainly suffered, losing to Katoto on the hour mark, but above all they resisted, thanks in particular to their goalkeeper Christiane Endler, who flew past Sara Däbritz ( 54th) and intervened in front of Sakina Karchaoui (76th). The Chilean door, which left Paris for Lyon last summer, responded well to the insulting songs of the ultra supporters of the Auteuil bend, who came en masse for the occasion. The latter ensured a warm atmosphere despite the defeat, restoring to the Parc des Princes an energy forgotten in recent weeks with the men’s section, much criticized by groups of supporters despite the Ligue 1 title. The attendance was 43,254 spectators: never no stadium had brought together so many people in France for a women’s club match. But 40,000 people could not be enough on Saturday to block OL, which had once again become a big player in Europe. With AFP