Tranmerekat on Tour: Barca-louder

Olympique Lyonaise play Barcelona Femeni in the Champions League Final at the San Mames Stadium in Bilbao

We are in Spain for the last game of our season and it's the end of our Champions League journey. It’s a shame that it's not Chelsea that we are cheering today. Instead, we are behind Wendie Raynard and her Lyon team today. Lyon beat PSG in dramatic style to get here and we know Baca's route only too well with them beating Chelsea at The Bridge 😠. The Lyon manager Sonia Bompastor will be Chelsea's manager next season as Emma has gone the manage Team USA. Lyon met Barca in the final 2 years ago and won that time 🤞. Last year they were knocked out in the quarter finals by Chelsea after THAT penalty shoot out. Barca have won 2 of the last 3 beating Wolfsburg in Amsterdam last year. We were expecting a good number of Lyon fans to turn up but the seem to be out numbered more than 50-1 by Barca. It was all Barcelona shirts on the river prom and in the Guggenheim Museum There was a Lyon fan meeting zone at Indautxa Plaza but it was empty of Lyon fans. Just a corner flag to pose with 📷. Lyon have Wendie at the back, Ellie Carpenter is on the right and Selma Bacha on the left. In the middle is Daniella Van de Donk and Lindsey Horan. Up front a Delphine Cascarino on the left with Kadidiatou Diani on the right and youngster Melchie Dumornay in the middle. Barca have Lucy Bronze on the right with Fridolin Rolfö on the left. Kiera and Aitana are in the middle. Up front are Caroline Graham Hansen, Selma Paralleulo and Mariona Caldentey. The talent on the benches includes Alexia Putellas, Mapi Leon and Ada Hegerberg.

After all the fantastic build-up, it's time for get the match underway. The first chance goes to Lyon after a couple of minutes as Diani just manages to lob the ball to Cascarino who is waiting to pounce but Lucy Bronze gets to it first. Barca start to get into their stride as CGH is giving Bacha a very hard time down the wing. She is not fast enough to catch her once she inevitably gets past. Raynard is struggling with her too. Bacha makes a great goal-line clearance that that would probably have gone done as a Horan OG after Paralleulo's shot was saved. It's still 0-0 at the break.

The first chance of the second half goes to Lyon. It falls to Wendie but she volleys it just over. The Whites need to be more clinical. Rolfö and CGH are still causing problems down the wings but the first goal comes from some incisive mid field passing. The ball ends up with Aitana whose weaving run ends in the 6 yard box. Her shot deflects off defender Vanessa Gilles over Endler into the back of the net. Bugger. Great play but a lucky, or unlucky, result. Lyon's best chance comes on 87 as Bacha's cross finds the head of Ada Hegerberg. She can't get it on target and it goes over the bar. Will she get time for another chance. There are huge cheers aground the stadium as Alexia replaces Kiera a minute into the 4 minutes of injury time. Her addition means that the last 3 Ballon d'Or Winners are now on the pitch. She scores 2 minutes later when she get the ball in the box and fits it into the roof of the net. 2-0. She gets booked as she does a Chloe Kelly with her shirt. The roar from the Barca fans is still going on when the whistle goes just after the restart.

Gutted about the result but a good game. Don't think the result was a reflection of the overall game. The margins were finer than the scoreline suggests. The difference was a couple of moments of genius, and perhaps a lucky deflection, from the last 2 Ballon d'Or winners. It would have been good to see hegerberg get more time. She came on with just 10 minutes to go and barely got a touch of the ball. Bringing her on after going a goal behind would surely have made more sense🤷🏻‍♂️. The atmosphere was great and a lot of noise, mostly whistling, from the Barca fans who made up 90% of the crowd. There were some Lyon fans behind the goal with some big flags. There was also a brief appearance of a single Palestine flag that someone had smuggled despite the searches at the entrance. We though that flares were banned in the ground but the women in front of us were wearing flares that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Saturday night at the Hacienda in 1990.

POTM: Although on the losing side it goes to Selma Bacha for a very dogged performance up against one of the world's best wingers. CGH was the undoing off Chelsea last year but Selma played a part in keeping her off the score sheet today . Félicitations 🏅.

The ref today was none other than English top ref Rebecca Welsh. She got fooled by the Barca skulduggery for the first five minutes and then managed it well. She seems to lose her way in the last 10 minutes as they started rolling around again.

The Scran'O'meter was too busy chewing on the Pick'n'Mix to give comment🍬😶. Fair enough.

Our first foray into European football, if you don't count crossing the River ~~Styx~~ Severn to Newport County, and it's been really good fun. The whole town filled with Garnet and Blue shirts. The Spanish really do get behind their women's teams. Plenty of banter about our Lyon shirts and people talking to us in French. Hope to be crossing the channel again before too long. See you somewhere, much, closer to home next season.

Love Tranmerekat 🐾