Barcelona Women’s team have made footballing history by winning the Champions League to complete an unprecedented quadruple. They managed to overcome Olympique Lyon in the final in Bilbao to retain the title and make it three wins in four years. The final itself was a repeat of the 2022 final, but unlike that night in Turin, it was the Catalans that managed to get their hands on the trophy.
The Quadruple
This victory cemented their status as one of Europe’s premier teams. They now sit behind only Olympique Lyonnais and Frankfurt in terms of European titles with eight and four respectively. They did not have an easy road to the victory having to take on eventual English champions Chelsea in the semis and arguably the historically best team in Europe in the big event itself. The Catalans will rightly be proud of their achievements this year.
The club is no stranges to success having won a treble of some description for the last four seasons running. That includes domestic trebles in the 2019/20 and 2021/22 seasons, while missing out on one of the domestic cups in the 2020/21 and 2022/23 seasons. This campaign, however, it all turned to gold.
Barcelona had already wrapped up Liga F by some margin, chalking up an impressive ninh domestic title. This was the crowning achievement of a domestic campaign that had also seen them lift the Copa de la Reina and Supercopa de España. Their domestic dominance was illustrated by the score lines in the cup finals 8-0 against Sociedad in the Copa and 7-0 against Levante in the Supercopa.
Golden Giráldez
This was the dream send-off for manager Jonatan Giráldez, who could not have scripted a better ending for this chapter of his story if he tried. Giráldez had been in charge of the squad for three fruitful years that saw the squad amass a frankly outrageous 10 trophies.
Giráldez has developed a team that is not only technically dominant but also mentally resilient. He has developed a squad that can withstand hardships like losing at home to Chelsea to come back and claim victory in the tie. The 32-year-old was formally an assistant to Lluís Cortés and continued much of his mentor’s good work. He leaves the club to peruse challenges in the NWSL but he leaves behind a strong squad in a great moment.
Star-studded Squad
The squad itself is well placed to carry on this era of dominance with the likes of English defender Lucy Bronze, a four-time Champions League winner. Their dominance has been outline buy stats like a goal difference of +120 and a point-per-game ratio of 2.93. Barca’s Caroline Hansen can claim both the most goals and assists in Spain with 19 and 18 respectively.
The squad also features Alexia Putellas who won the 2021 and 22 Ballon d’Or Féminin awards as well Aitana Bonmati who won the same award at the 2023 ceremony. Bonmati also holds honour of most goals and assists combined in this season of the Champions League with 12. While the team itself maintained an impressive possession stats of 61.82% and passing accuracy of 87.37% in Europe.
In fact, nine of the players that featured in the squads of last year’s World Cup final between England and Spain play for the Blagrana including: Cata Coll, Laia Codina, Irene Paredes, Ona Batlle, Aitana Bonmatí, Mariona Caldentey and Salma Paralluelo, Keira Walsh and Lucy Bronze
“Més que un Club“
The honours say it all: Barcelona’s dominance of world football is unequivocal. If the trophies were not enough, then stats like Chelsea’s win this year beomg the first time Las Reinas have been beaten at home in over five years speak volumes. This is the team to beat: they are the history makes, the quadruple winners, ‘més que un club.’