to live you have to believe. The Barcelona soccer players believed, given over to the revolt because they know more than anyone that there will always be someone who wants to deny them. who wants to delete them. And the 10,000 Barcelona fans who populated the Philips Stadium in Eindhoven believed, delivered on car journeys of more than 20 hours, with fathers and mothers holding the hands of boys and girls. Families that will never be able to pay for tickets either at the Camp Nou or in exile on Montjuïc, and who feel they have recovered the pride of belonging to football as always, which no longer exists in the masculine. Because the industry rules there, not the people.
Barcelona won the second Champions League in its history, after the success of 2021 in Göteborg, because it had the guts and the quality to lift the 0-2 with which Wolfsburg had punished it in the first half. Patri Guijarro, the silent engine of this team, enjoyed the day of his life scoring two goals in two minutes. In both episodes he looked for El Dorado from the second row, always leaving Huth behind, and crowning what was created from the wing by Graham Hansen, maddening for his rivals, and Aitana Bonmatí, decisive when he should. The final 3-2, blessed poetic justice, was taken by Fridolina Rolfö, the same player who, still in the ranks of Wolfsburg, sank the Catalans in the 2020 semifinals, when Barcelona began to understand that Europe would end up being theirs.
Alexia Putellas, the double Ballon d'Or winner who has been out for nine months, was able to play the minutes of added time. The torment experienced deserved the award from his coach, no matter how much Wolfsburg denied his surrender until the very sunset. The Germans have lost their last four Champions League finals.
Guijarro celebrates one of his two goals with Walsh.
Practicality, order and effectiveness in the hot areas of the field. Soccer, sometimes, can be much simpler than it seems. Jonatan Giráldez, the Barcelona coach who became paternity only eight days ago, and with the baby in the stands, twisted his lineup. It was surprising that the Brazilian Geyse was left out of the starting eleven, even more so in the absence of Oshoala due to injury. It was Salma Paralluelo who had to act as a striker, when her football requires spaces and fields to make it work.
Tommy Stroot, Wolfsburg's conductor, seemed to suffice with a little variation. He placed Popp, hardened in a thousand battles, as an offensive reference; and above all, he heeled the band to his sharpest stiletto, the Polish Pajor, to make life miserable for the aching Bronze. Thus, the runners-up in the women's Bundesliga had enough in the first act to score two goals in their only three approaches.
A year ago, in the lost final in Turin, Barcelona saw how Olympique de Lyon marked them in the sixth minute. This time the first blow came even before. Bronze, who had not played a game since she underwent an arthroscopy in her right knee on April 26 and who appeared in the game with a bandage on her thigh, entertained herself while driving. Pajor went towards her with the speed and forcefulness of a fly swatter.. He took the ball from him and did not want to wait any longer. He released a right from the front that doubled the mitt of the goalkeeper Cloths.
Between Pajor and Popp, who had just knocked down Mapi León at the start of the transition, they plotted the 0-2 crowned by the captain of the German team. But Barcelona, this time, was not going to get carried away with the entire second half ahead.
Rolfö hugs his teammates after the 3-2. . MEISSNER A.P.
Giráldez insisted on his plan, convinced that the also champions of the League and the Spanish Super Cup would react despite the spider web spread by Oberdorf, with stocks on their boots.. The solutions had to go through what was generated on the wings, with Graham Hansen's right bank as a paradise to explore. The Norwegian danced with the look of someone who laughs on the inside, never on the outside. Guijarro showed his companions the meaning of the epic. And Rolfö, after a tangle of the central defenders that Mariona put to good use, caught the goal that put an end to the revolution.
Alexia shot from the bench. She was the first to run to embrace Rolfö. The image was poetic.