Real Madrid 1-2 Chelsea, Women's Champions League: Post-match reaction

Yesterday at 02:41 PM

First-place group stage finish in the bag!

This Chelsea Women squad has a lot of talent. At the same time, it's still trying to find an identity under manager Sonia Bompastor.

She herself admitted that our talent should've been enough to get us a win against Leicester City last weekend. It almost did as the Blues could've easily gone out of King Power Stadium with a big scoreline in their favour had they had a bit more luck in front of goal.

However talent won't suffice in several occasions. We need better tactics, and more bodies to cover a group of very talented players suffering from the wear and tear of a season where they spent most of their time doing their best to beat their opposition domestically and abroad.

Real Madrid quickly showed that to us in the first half. The well-drilled team, with help of Linda Caicedo's talents, got the opening goal less than 10 minutes into the match via Carolina Weir.

Chelsea would keep the pressure onto Madrid. But the ball getting to Caicedo sufficed to send our backline into shock and confusion as almost every attacking foray of ours became either an off-target shot or a corner kick, and Madrid players were free to take shots at Mayra Ramírez with no punishment any time she was on the ball.

At the end of the first half it really felt as if Chelsea were heading towards their first defeat of the season under Sonia Bompastor. Seeing Guro Reiten substituted out for injury just minutes before the 45-minute mark didn't raise anyone's hopes.

But it turns out talent can get you out of some pretty prickly situations. Which is what Catarina Macario did with back-to-back, very well taken spot kicks in less than 10 minutes of playing time after coming from the bench.

Chelsea were still hanging by a thread. Madrid, now behind in the scoreline, were applying a lot of pressure to a tired backline with little to no depth to them. Still we held strong, and we got to finish the year with a huge win in the Champions League.

Carefree!

• Interesting changes in the starting lineup, with Hannah Hampton between the posts instead of Zecira Musovic and Niamh Charles back in the fold.
• Will Chelsea do anything to sort out their backline until the window closes in February? Or are they just going to hope two natural centre-backs will be enough to go on for the rest of the season?
• Catarina Macario with a 10-minute performance for the ages.
• Next up: Charlton at home in the Women's League Cup... next year.
• KTBFFH!