For the third time in the last three years, Real Madrid capsized against Chelsea in London. White suffered the first defeat of the season at Stamford Bridge in a match in which two errors after two corner kicks penalized a team that in the collective game competed face to face on the pitch with one of the top favorites to win. the Champions. An own goal from Sheila García, starting at right back ahead of Oihane Hernández, and a penalty committed by María Méndez and converted by Reiten punished Alberto Toril’s team in the first half, which had won its seven previous games. Despite the stretches of control, the chances and the goals from Alba Redondo and Linda Caicedo, Real were shipwrecked in the British capital in their debut this season in the Champions League, where two small details, two individual mistakes, cost them the three points. Mayra Ramírez, the very powerful Colombian, scored the third goal in the second half. Six minutes from the end, Caicedo, who had come on for Tere Abelleira, tightened the score, but in the final push Madrid did not find a way to rescue a point and will have to deal with Celtic and Twente in the coming days in the fight towards the quarters.
3
Zecira Musovic, Millie Bright, Lucy Bronze, Sandy Baltimore, Nathalie Björn, Lauren James, Sjoeke Nüsken, Wieke Kaptein, Mayra Ramírez, Guro Reiten and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd
2
Misa, Maëlle Lakrar, María Méndez, Olga Carmona, Sheila García, Filippa Angeldahl, Athenea del Castillo, Melanie Leupolz, Teresa Abelleira, Alba Redondo and Caroline Weir
Goals 1-0 min. 2: Sjoeke Nusken. 2-0 min. 27: Guro Reiten. 2-1 min. 39: Alba Redondo. 3-1 min. 52: Mayra Ramírez. 3-2 min. 83: Linda Caicedo.
Referee Ivana Martincic
yellow cards Teresa Abelleira (min. 61)
Madrid’s debut became complicated in the second minute. Under a heavy rain, a deluge that did not stop during the entire first section and that very quickly laid the grass, the blues They found themselves with the goal before the game. Sheila García, after losing sight of the ball in a cross from Kaptein, saw how the leather hit her in the head and the grass spit it directly into the net, close to Misa’s left post. The goal was a blow for a team that was tested tonight for the first time against one of the biggest clubs in Europe after the eight good reinforcements that arrived in the summer and who are called to give the team a competitive leap.
After the goal, Real found calm and control with the combinations of their midfield. Tere Abelleira, with a formidable ability to mix short and long, began to partner with Weir, Angendahl and Leupolz, while Olga Carmona gave him depth with her moves up the left lane. White settled in Chelsea’s field, but without worrying Musovic, the goalkeeper, who had no problems stopping Weir’s shot, White’s first attempt on the rival goal.
With Madrid improved and familiar with the bluesthis time it was a mistake by María Méndez that hit them again in a corner kick. The center back, focused on clearing the ball, did not notice that Nusken was coming forward and instead of hitting the ball, she kicked the German midfielder.
Once again, Madrid escaped the blow due to the connection of their midfielders and Carmona’s verticality. After a fantastic partnership with Abelleira, Angendahl and Weir, the winger broke Rytting Kaneryd, reached the baseline and put a cross back that after several rejections ended up in Redondo. The forward put the ball in the net with a right foot that passed between Musovic’s legs on the brink of half-time.
The team led this season by Sonia Bompastor, the first and only woman to win the Champions League as a player (2011 and 2012) and coach (2022)—all three with Lyon—came out of the locker room with a different look. The intense pressure and vertical play prevented Madrid from establishing themselves in the opposite half in the second half. The blues They found the goal again in a shot by Mayra Ramírez, who arrived at Chelsea last January from Levante in a record transfer. The Colombian’s header grazed Lakrar and poisoned the parabola to make Misa’s action difficult.
Toril removed Abelleira, who two minutes earlier had received a yellow card for protesting, from the field and gave a reel to Caicedo. The very young Colombian, 19 years old, once again left more details that suggest a player with extraordinary potential, and scored the tying goal in the 84th minute after a shot from Eva Navarro, who had entered for Athenea del Castillo. Madrid turned around and launched a final push in which Lakrar headed in a Weir cross that went tamely into the hands of Musovic and left Real for another year without catching anything in London. If he does not want problems for the third consecutive season in the group stage, he is already obliged to react next Thursday against Celtic at the Alfredo di Stéfano.
