Barca is optimistic of defeating Chelsea and reaching a third straight WCL final.

With a 1-0 lead from the first leg of the semifinals, Barcelona is optimistic that they can advance to a third straight women’s Champions League final when they play Chelsea on Thursday.

The Catalans, who defeated the Blues 4-0 to win the trophy as part of a treble in 2021, have advanced to three finals in the previous four years.

The French team defeated Barcelona in the other two finals but was eliminated by Chelsea, making Jonatan Giraldez’s squad the favorites to win the cup once more.

Despite Chelsea holding on to gain a lifeline at Stamford Bridge last weekend, Barcelona will be thrilled to have the opportunity to play at Camp Nou. Caroline Graham Hansen scored early to give her side the lead in the match.

In just four home Champions League games this season, Giraldez’s team has scored 23 goals and given up just one goal, a crushing 5-1 victory against Roma in the quarterfinals.

“I think we had control, we got the goal and could have scored a couple more, but, in the end, it was a really good game,” Graham Hansen said to reporters on Tuesday.

“If you look at our statistics from the past few years, we have suffered losses abroad (in Europe).” Even though we still won the games on the road, we still made it through.

We now have a fantastic opportunity to advance to another final at home in front of our supporters.

The team is poised to win Liga F on Sunday, a competition in which they have 60 straight victories, and the Norwegian attacker claims that winning in Europe is the club’s major objective once more.

The winger continued, “Our main goal for the season is to win the Champions League, and if we reach the final, we are one step closer to that.

“I swear I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen,”

Despite Barcelona’s dominance of the first match, Emma Hayes’ Chelsea team pushed hard to prevent them from amassing a larger score.

Ingred Engen, a midfielder for Barcelona, believes that the advantage is sufficient to provide her team a strong starting point for the return match.

“I think it’s a strong result for us — it’s not like we need to have a 3-0 lead to feel good,” the Norwegian remarked on Tuesday.

“Now that we are aware of playing in front of our supporters at Camp Nou, which gives us an incredible feeling, it’s a good result for the second leg for us,” the player said.

Barcelona set two Champions League attendance records for women’s football last season, drawing over 90,000 spectators to their 5-2 and 5-1 victories over Real Madrid in the quarterfinal and Wolfsburg in the semifinal, respectively.

In contrast to the 2021 final in Gothenburg, where Chelsea conceded four goals in the first 36 minutes, coach Hayes was pleased with her team’s performance following Barcelona’s early goal in the first leg.

Alexia Putellas, who starred for Barcelona that evening and may rejoin the lineup after missing the entire season thus far due to an ACL injury, is still uncertain due to a knee injury sustained in the first leg, while Lucy Bronze is also questionable.

Hayes stated, “I wanted to be in the tie, and we are in the tie.

“For a subsequent game, we must once again prepare. Players have now suffered that defeat in 2021, and it’s critical that we learn from it and maintain the tie. That was my main point: “Remain in your tie.”

Chelsea overcame injury and defeated Lyon on penalties in the quarterfinals, giving them hope that an unusual outcome could occur at Camp Nou.

“We limited them to as few chances as we possibly could, and I’ll take that going into the next game,” Hayes continued.

I was unhappy in our offensive performance, but we’ll improve.