The scale of Chelsea’s task in their European semi-final second leg can be summed up in a few ominous statistics. For starters, their opponents, Barcelona, have never lost a two-leg Women’s Champions League tie after securing a first-leg victory. They have won 17 consecutive two-leg ties in the tournament and, this time, the eight-time semi-finalists are three goals ahead.
For Chelsea to knock them out from 4-1 down will require something out of the ordinary; historic in fact. Since Europe’s elite women’s club competition was rebranded to be known as the Women’s Champions League in 2009-10, no team have overturned a three-goal deficit to progress on aggregate.
