Barcelona aim to upset Wolfsburg in Champions League semi-final rematch

The last time Barcelona and Wolfsburg met there were light years between them, the Barcelona coach, Lluís Cortés, says, but that was then and this is now. And now they meet in a Women’s Champions League semifinal where they both belong, seeking to reach the final again and then go one step better: 2019’s runners-up face 2018’s in San Sebastián and although Lyon, winners four years in a row, may await, just being there is no longer enough.

Not so long ago, it would have been for Barcelona. When these two teams faced each other in the quarter-finals in 2014, Wolfsburg won 5-0 on aggregate. Playing the German champions is still a formidable prospect: the team only Lyon seem able to eliminate from Europe, they have won four doubles in a row and reached four of the past seven Champions League finals, winning twice. They put nine past Glasgow City here last Friday.

It will also be a clash of styles, according to Barcelona’s winger Caroline Graham Hansen, who joined from Wolfsburg last year. Wolfsburg are quicker, stronger, more direct. In the Denmark international Pernille Harder, scorer of four goals against Glasgow, they have the player of the moment.

They may also have the advantage of having continued to compete domestically. By contrast, Barcelona’s 1-0 win over Atlético Madrid in Bilbao was their first competitive game in 173 days.

But, Cortés insisted, that win “reactivates us”. And while Wolfsburg remain favourites, defeating them is not the impossible task it once was.

Barcelona’s is a story of remarkable progression. For Wolfsburg, whose consistency is equally remarkable, it is no longer just about Lyon – for so long seen as untouchable and seemingly the only side who could stop Wolfsburg, beating them in the 2016 and 2018

finals, and the quarter-finals in 2017 and 2019; it’s also about Tuesday night’s opponents. “They know we can hurt them,” Cortés said.

He was not there then but he knows that in 2014 they could not. “The players would all agree that this is a much better team than it was a few years ago,” he said. “There were light years between us but that gap has closed.”

Defender Marta Torrejón, one of five Barcelona players remaining from that squad, agrees. “They were a standout European side and we had only just started as professionals; we had very little chance,” she said. “Now we’re closer to them. We’ve worked very well.”

Barcelona women’s team turned professional the following year. There were new players, new resources, better facilities and significant growth. They won 19 of 21 league games before lockdown meaning that, after three years of Atlético winning it, Barcelona had the title awarded to them.

Having also defeated Atlético 1-0 in the quarter-finals of this competition, this is the third time in four years they have reached the semi-finals. They were 4-0 down within 30 minutes of last year’s final, their first. They eventually lost 4-1 but Cortés insists that was good for them too.

“We were a bit overwhelmed by it all,” he said. “But it was a learning process, an apprenticeship. It made us train better, work harder. And today’s team is better than that one, ready now to beat anyone and win anything.

“The club bet heavily on women’s football, for this very reason – to get to play these games against these teams.”