It was not the best game for Jonatan Giráldez’s Barça, who finished the game with just one shot between the three sticks. Something unusual for the Blaugrana giant, although the coach wanted to send a message of optimism from the press room: “I would like to send a message of optimism. We know that it is not the result we wanted, but the only thing we have to do in the return is to win and we are very used to doing it.”
Giráldez was not overly critical of his team and described the duel as “very even” and with “few chances on the part of both teams.” For the Galician coach, a draw would have been a fairer result due to the equality he perceived in the duel, although he acknowledged that Chelsea was “very intense” and pushed them into “an uncomfortable match.”
“It’s a defeat, but we will have the opportunity to turn it around. Don’t worry, there are still 90 minutes left,” said Giráldez, who will play heads or tails in London. A match in which he does not expect a very different approach from Emma Hayes: “For them I don’t think it will affect the result of the first leg. We knew that they would try to play a long match, with little rhythm, that would be played as little as possible… return will be a similar approach because it has worked for them. We, on the other hand, will be forced to change some things.
Aitana Bonmatí was one of the most critical of the team, she recognized that the team had not been up to par, but she was confident in turning it around: “We have not been at our best, we must admit, because we had Chelsea in front of us , which is a great rival. Sometimes we also have to lose, but this will help us get a better version next week.”
“We only lost by a goal advantage. I trust one hundred percent in my team. We can come back, because if there is something this team has, it is ambition, confidence in overcoming these types of situations, even though we normally do not experience them,” he added.
The Blaugrana midfielder was very upset with the constant interruptions of the rival’s game: “I’m not in favor of playing like that, but we already knew it. We had talked about Chelsea playing like that, which for me is playing dirty. That’s how we warned them. to the referee, but it doesn’t depend on us, we have to know how to play with it.
