Chelsea will meet Barcelona in the Women’s Champions League semi-finals after a dramatic penalty shootout win over Lyon.
When Sara Dabritz had doubled the visitors’ advantage in extra-time following Vanessa Gilles’ 76th-minute goal, Emma Hayes’ side looked as if they were crashing out.
A glorious chance for Sam Kerr in the opening 45 minutes aside, they had struggled to truly trouble the Lyon goal until a frantic end to extra-time.
The excellent Lauren James won a penalty in the dying embers of the game, finally getting some change out of a Lyon defence to have largely held the hosts at bay.
Maren Mjelde then stepped up and scored from the spot, taking the game to the lottery of a shootout. The only sour note of which from a Chelsea perspective was James’ effort being saved, with all four of her teammates scoring and goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger saving twice to send the Blues through.
