Tranmerekat on Tour: Romance in Naranja

Chelsea WFC v Real Madrid Femenino in Group B of the UEFA Champions League at Stamford Bridge

The Blues are back in Champions League action with the first of their group games being Real Madrid at home. On paper it looks easy for the Blues as they have beaten Real Madrid at the group stage for the last 2 years. Also in the group are Celtic and FC Twente who are both on their first group stage adventure. Hope they have fun but are eventually unsuccessful. Chelsea have started the season well and have maximum points after a narrow win against Villa and then putting 7 past Palace at GGL. Their sold out WSL game against Man Utd was postponed at a weeks' notice on the grounds of player welfare. The biggest change is that Emma has gone to manage USA, oh yeh, and she won the Olympics with them this summer. Emma just being Emma. The Blues now have Sonia Bompastor who we last saw as Lyon manager in Bilbao. This is an easy banana skin for the Blues tonight. Las Blancas, seen here in a very Dutch Orange , still have Linda Caicedo, Caroline Wier, who has escaped the ACL gang, and signed Melanie Leupolz from the Blues in the summer. There are a few new faces for the Blues. French winger, Sandie Baltimore has signed from PSG. Sandie is at left back and on the right is familiar face, Lucy Bronze , fresh from winning the Champions League with Barcemoana. In the centre of defence are Millie and Natalie. Hannah is behind them in goal. Joining Nusken in the middle is new signing Wieke Kaptein who arrives at Chelsea after signing from Twente a year ago and spending the season there on loan. LJ is the 10 so will be drifting everywhere or no-where and taking the place of Fran who has gone to Brighton along with Cankovic👍🏼. Up front are JRK, Guru and Mayra. Las Blancas have lost Hayley Raso to Spurs so no ribbon to watch for tonight. Linda C is on the bench thankfully. Let's get on with it.

The Liquidator starts up and the crowd are on their feet ready to go. Only the players don't come out and the music stops. A couple of minutes go by and were off again. This time the players come out and line up. It's Zecira in green and not Hannah who must have had an issue in the warm up. After the false start, it finally underway. JRK is full of beans and wins a corner in the first minute. It's not cleared and JRK's cross ends up in the back of the net. There scorer is not announced so it must be an O.G ⚽. Goal is a goal. Need some more beforetMadrid find their feet. The high energy press lasts for about 5 more minutes. Wieke Kaptein has a nasty clash with the pitch side advertising. She seems OK after a while. The visitors get a chance on 16 but Maria Mendes heads over from the corner. The rain starts to gets bit heavier. A orange shirt shot is easily caught by Zecira. The rain gets even heavier. Chelsea get a corner on 30. Nusken is fouled in the box and the ref gives a pen. Gura does her thing ⚽. 2-0. A double save from Zecira on 32 keeps the lead but the pressure on the hosts is building in the pouring rain. There is a scramble in the Blues box on 39 and Redeondo blasts home. I think the Blues are happy when the break comes. 2-1.

Chelsea are back up to speed and starting to apply pressure again. Weike's shot is deflected and saved as the Blues dominate. Some good wing play leads to LJ ghosting into the box and her cross finds the head of Mayra. It goes high and looks like it over the bar but it drops just under and into the net⚽. 3-1. The Whites respond by bringing on Lida Caicedo. She might be a handful, depending on where she plays. LJ is fouled by Teresa Abelleria. It's not a booking but she then reacts and gets booked for opening her mouth. Big cheers from the crowd. Guru and Mayra both have good chances from LJ crosses. Sonia makes some changes on 66 with Lawrence replacing Baltimore and Hermano replacing Kaptein. Into the last 15 and the important 5th goal could go either way. Feller comes on for Castillo and is an immediate threat. JRK is replaced by OJF for the Blues. It's been a great shift from the Swedish winger. It's the Spaniards applying the pressure now. A cross into the Blues box is not dealt with and Caicedo prods it home on 83. 3-2. Oops. A tough last ten minutes ahead. The Blues soak up the pressure though and see out the win. Aaannnd breath. Glad those Madrid subs came on so late. Phew.😰

A first Champions League win for Sonia but it was far from convincing. The early energy faded quickly but the side has been depleted by a sickness bug in the week so not all are at their peak. It turns out that Erin, who is just back from injury, got a knock in training. Cat Macario and Megan Fox were also unwell. With no keeper on the bench, it was apparently decided which outfield player would go in goal. We don't know who it was and probably never will . If we had to guess, and we can't resist, it would be Natalie Bjorn. She looks a bit like a keeper. The Blues performance was lacklustre on the whole but there were a few moments of brilliance. They sat back too much and it became difficult to get down the wings with any success. The penalty looked a bit soft but we'll take it, or rather Guru took it and she doesn't miss those. The weather was awful for parts of the game and there was some slipping and sliding. We were over on the far side so couldn't hear Sonia instructions. She's not Emma 📣. Saying that, no-one could hear much over the Madrid keepers constant screaming. We like a shouty keeper but it was a bit too screechy. There was some good noise from the Stamford Bridge crowd, mostly at the back led by Basil but there were other small pockets of fans giving the girls support from the stands. It's a good start and 3 points on the board. FC Twente top the group after match day 1 as they beat Celtic 2-0. Their first time in the group stage but they could be tough opposition for the Blues when they head there next Wednesday. Sure Chelsea will get a warm Dutch welcome. And any tea drinkers need take their own milk as they drink it with lemon over there. Or just drink coffee like normal people. That's it for us in London this week.

POTM: Goes to JRK 🏅 for her ridiculous level of energy. Blew the Spaniards away from the first whistle.

Ref: All the officials had a good game especially considering the conditions. They intervened only where necessary and didn't fall for any of the Spaniard's theatrics.

Basil watch: Met him at the main entrance and heard him for most of the game.

Bottle top news: All bottle tops were left intact.

See you on Saturday

Love Tranmerekat 🐾