Barcelona broke the women’s attendance record as 91,553 fans watched them come from behind to beat bitter rivals Real Madrid 5-2 at Camp Nou on Wednesday and reach the Champions League semi-finals with an 8-3 aggregate win.
Leading 3-1 from the first leg and roared on by a partisan Nou Camp, the reigning champions won 5-2 on the night and 8-3 on aggregate to set up a last-four meeting with either Arsenal or Wolfsburg.
The previous highest turnout for a women’s club game came in 2019 when 60,739 people saw Barca beat Atletico Madrid 2-0 at Wanda Metropolitano. The previous Champions League record was 50,212 for a game between Lyon and Frankfurt in Munich in 2012.
Wednesday evening’s crowd at Europe’s largest stadium also dwarfed the record for spectators at a women’s international, set when 80,203 fans witnessed the United States secure Olympic gold by beating Japan 2-1 at Wembley during London 2012.
“I dont have the words to describe it”, Ballon dOr winner Alexia Putellas said. “It was super magical. The game ended and the fans didnt want to leave. It was incredible.
It was the first time Barcelona’s women’s team played a match at the Camp Nou in front of fans. They had played at the stadium before but behind closed doors because of restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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The team usually play its matches at the much smaller Johan Cruyff Stadium, which holds about 6,000 fans. The Camp Nou – which featured a stadium-wide mosaic featuring the words ‘More than Empowerment’ on seats – has a 99,000-capacity.
Real briefly threatened to spoil the party after Olga Carmona’s penalty and a fine strike from Claudia Zornoza put them 2-1 ahead on the night following Mapi Leon’s early opener.
But Barcelona were not to be denied the El Clasico bragging rights on a historic evening and have now won all seven meetings with its great rival.
Second-half goals from Aitana Bonmati, Claudia Pina, Ballon d’Or holder Alexia Putellas and Caroline Hansen comfortably sent them through.
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They will discover their semi-final opponents on Thursday when 2007 winners Arsenal travel to Volkswagen Arena to take on Wolfsburg with the tie level at 1-1 following last week’s first leg.
PSG eliminate Bayern after extra-time drama
Ramona Bachmann’s extra-time strike sent PSG into the Champions League semi-finals after they knocked out Bayern Munich, winning 4-3 on aggregate.
The teams played 120 minutes at the Parc des Princes and couldn’t be separated until Bachmann settled the game having come off the bench to fire the winning goal.
PSG’s Sandy Baltimore scored the game’s opening goal on 17 minutes only for Bayern defender Saki Kumagai to equalise less than two minutes later as the German side showed great togetherness to keep tabs on the hosts.
Klara Bühl grabbed Bayern the deserved lead after the break when cutting in from the left and firing home.
With neither side finding a winner in normal time it was left to Bachmann in extra-time to net the important winning goal.
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