Barça Femení return to UCL competition while rest of Barcelona sits in chaos

For all the consternation surrounding the men’s first team, the Barça Femení are a top team in Europe and will be playing for a spot in the Champions League semi-finals on Friday against rivals Atlético Madrid. Their secret? Adding talent that fit and stability everywhere else.

Not that they had to make a lot of changes after getting to the Champions League final last season, where they were outclassed by a superior Lyon side. The difference for this campaign was that the team was even better than last year.

Barcelona won the league for the first team since 2015. They had won 19 of 21 matches this season, including the Supercopa. The team is also still alive in the Copa de la Reina, with the semi-finals still pending.

Unlike their Champions League opponent, the Barça Women have been successful in 2019-20 through stability brought about by reinforcing needs last season and over the summer and sticking with the plan.

Asisat Oshoala was on loan starting last January from Dalian Quanjian in China, before the club bought her services outright. The four-time African Women’s Footballer of the Year scored 20 goals in 19 appearances this season highlighted by a brace in a 6-1 drudging of Atlético in September. With the attacking weapons at Lluís Cortés’ disposal, Oshoala doesn’t always start, six of her appearances this season have come from the bench, but the ability to bring on this kind of talented forward is a luxury only the top teams possess.

Oshoala would start all the time if not for Jenni Hermoso, the 30-year-old Spanish forward who returned from Atlético last summer. She was the top scored in the league with 23 goals. Hermoso isn’t just a striker, just can drop into the midfield and create as well, preferring to play a free-flowing role and popping up to finish chances.

Cortés has won 46 of the 53 games he’s managed since taking over for Fran Sánchez in 2019, and stability has been the name of the game. He kept the 4-3-3 that the team was most accustomed to and simply plugged the new additions in instead of revamping everything. Norwegian winger Caroline Graham Hansen, who arrived from potential next round opponent Wolfsburg last summer, contributed seven goals and nine assists.

Lieke Marens was limited to just 12 appearances and less than 800 minutes for the first time in her professional career, but her one goal and five assists are deceiving. If Martens is healthy again and hits the ground running, Barcelona’s chances to go deep in the tournament increase greatly.

While they don’t get the same attention, the other positions on the field are solid. Sandra Paños in net, Mapi León, Leila Ouahabi, and Andrea Pereira patrolling the defense, and a combination of Vicky Losada, Alexia Putellas, Patri Guijarro, Kheira Hamraoui, and Aitana Bonmati in the midfield have given the attackers the foundation they need. Not that they don’t help out with goalscoring – Putellas has 10 goals and eight assists, Bonmati has five goals and five assists, and Hamraoui has two goals and five assists from a deeper midfield position.

The big question is at right-back. While 18-year-old Jana Fernández, one of the top prospects in Spain, could be relied upon to fill in for the injured Marta Torrejón, but this would be her debut in the Champions League. The regular back-up, Ana Maria Crnogorcevic is also dealing with some injuries picked up in the preseason. If Torrejón is healthy, this is a non-story. If not, Fernández becomes the story, unless Cortés has something else in mind.

Atlético would probably prefer to have just one position to worry about. Unlike Barcelona, it has been a tougher season for their rivals, finishing nine points off the champions and crashing out of the Copa de la Reina prior to the quarter-finals. Manager Dani González took over just seven matches before the stoppage, and he is currently dealing with training session cancellations due to five positive Covid-19 tests last week. These tests should be worrying for both squads though, as the match may be brought into question without negative tests.

The likes of Ángela Sosa, the 2018-19 league MVP, and Leicy Santos, are talented enough to shift the balance of a match. Yet, so much is unknown about which Atlético players will be available for the fixture that the element of surprise may be their best weapon.

The proper expectations are for the Femení to get past their rival and potentially upset Wolfsburg (or Glasgow City, who are overwhelming underdogs in that match-up). The gap has closed between Barcelona and Wolfsburg, but Lyon is as strong as ever and remain the competition favorites.

The Barça Femení are being largely forgotten because of all the consternation surrounding the first team, but hopefully Culers can rally behind a team that represents stability in the Blaugrana colors.

Dan Hilton is an American journalist, broadcaster, and current Editor-in-Chief of BarcaBlog. Extensive work as a play-by-play broadcaster, producer behind the scenes, and quite average player in his younger years has given him a well-rounded and informative perspective on the sport. Alongside BarcaBlog founder Francesc, Dan started The Barcelona Podcast in 2017.

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Source: barcablog.com