LONDON, 20 NOV — Summer signing Ellie Carpenter scored the equaliser in Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Barcelona at Stamford Bridge on Thursday, delivering a sharp shot into the top of the net to give the Blues one point in this week’s Women’s Champions League match.
To give the Blues an early start, the Australian international smashed home a powerful goal from the edge of the box in the 16th minute after breaking down the wing and slotting the ball into the top right corner.
“This team [Barcelona] has so much technicality, it’s difficult, you have to almost be perfect.” Chelsea head coach Sonia Bompastor, in a post-match interview, said. “It’s frustrating not to have won, especially when you look at the statistics, but I think overall there are a lot of positives to take.”
Barcelona’s Ewa Pajor quickly retaliated minutes later with a goal that was ruled offside and disallowed. However, she quickly scored the equaliser from a shot into the top right of the net following a corner in the 24th minute, which brought the Polish international to 55 goals in 58 games.
The match briefly halted in the 37th minute due to an outage right before a near-goal from Aitana Bonmati in the 38th minute slipped wide of the net.
Carpenter, determined to double her tally after her earlier goal, saw her second attempt against Barcelona goalkeeper Cata Coll curl just wide of the post in the 64th minute and later fired another wide in the 81st minute.
The Chelsea goalscorer said: “Really proud of the team, we executed the game well. I think we had a lot of chances, though I’m disappointed in the one I missed at the end.”
Midfielder Catarina Macario provided immediate action upon being subbed on, heading the ball into the goal from a free kick on her first touch of the game, only for it to be disallowed for offside in the 71st minute.
“Chelsea were very stable, very vertical in position, especially in the backline.” Jonatan Giràldez, Barcelona’s head coach, said post-match. “It’s very different to the last two semi-finals [we played against them], they matched all of our players.”
The final moments of the first half saw French defender Sandy Baltimore shoot the ball directly into Cata Coll’s hands in the 45th minute, just before Coll made a diving save on an attempt from Kingston local Aggie Beever Jones in the 46th minute, close to the post.
“Earlier on this year we didn’t put our best foot forward and I think tonight is a performance to be proud of,” said Chelsea captain Erin Cuthbert. “It’s a good draw, it’s something to build on, and we executed our plan.”
Following the draw, Chelsea have moved to 6th position in the Champions league table, and now head back home to Kingsmeadow, where they prepare to face tenth-placed Everton in a WSL match on Sunday 7th December.
