Women’s CL: Lyon make it 5-in-a-row
SAN SEBASTIAN: Star-studded Lyon edged out a formidable Wolfsburg side 3-1 in Sunday’s UEFA Women’s Champions League final in San Sebastian to extend their reign as champions of Europe. The win was Lyon’s fifth straight Champions League triumph, and a recordextending seventh overall.
French forward Eugenie Le Sommer gave Lyon the lead in the 25th minute before her Japanese teammate Saki Kumagai added another one minute before half time. German striker Alexandra Popp halved the deficit for Wolfsburg in the 57th minute but Lyon’s Icelandic midfielder Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir wrapped things up for the French side with an 88th minute strike.
Managed by Frenchman Jean-Luc Vasseur, Lyon had previously edged out Bayern Munich and PSG in the ‘Final Eight’ in Spain’s Basque Country, played behind closed doors because of the coronavirus pandemic. The win further cemented the Lyon women’s football team’s status as one of the most dominant ever professional sports teams. The side has won 14 straight French Division 1 titles, a run that started in 2006-07. In their last 10 seasons, Lyon have lost only two league games.
They have also won the French Cup nine times in 13 seasons. But it is their indisputable dominance in Europe— nine finals in the last 11 seasons of the Champions League and seven titles in the last 10—that has caught the eye. Sunday’s win against a side that won a German domestic double and were unbeaten in 40 games before the final also displayed Lyon’s remarkable strength in depth. In the final, Lyon were missing four key players—2018 women’s Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg, French duo Griedge Mbock and Amandine Henry to injury and England forward Nikita Parris to suspension.
“We’ve definitely got the strongest squad in the world,” explained English defender Lucy Bronze. “Now we need to win a sixth in a row to beat the record,” said captain Wendie Renard, who along with Le Sommer and goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi has featured in all seven final wins. “It is hard to win this trophy but we give everything to win it every year.”