Barcelona v Lyon: Women’s Champions League final 2022 – live!

Hello and welcome to live coverage of the Champions League final between Barcelona and Lyon in Turin. The best sport – the really, really, really good stuff – needs no hype or ballyhoo. This game can be summarised in less than 50 characters, never mind 140: the reigning champions v the perennial champions.

Lyon have won this tournament a record seven times including five in a row from 2016-20. But Barcelona succeeded them last year and go into tonight’s final as very strong favourites. Their record in all competitions this season is from the realms of fantasist football: P44 W43 D0 L1 F210 A19.

May I stop you there. Could you kindly go back and look at those numbers again: 44 games, 43 wins, TWO HUNDRED AND TEN GOALS! Their team includes Alexia Putellas, the best player in the world, as well as Jenni Hermoso, Caroline Hansen, Aitana Bonmatí and a load of other stars. When our expert panel voted for the 100 best female footballers in the world at the end of last year, six of the top 10 were Barcelona players.

This time last year they sliced and diced Chelsea in the final in Gothenburg, scoring all four goals in the first 36 minutes, and Lyon’s first job will be to get through the first 10 minutes unscathed.

Part of Barcelona’s journey (drink!) to the top was a 4-1 hammering by Lyon in the 2019 final. They were the victims of an even faster start that night, with all four goals coming in the first half-hour. That included a hat-trick from the great Ada Hegerberg, whose presence tonight could give the Barcelona defence the heebie-jeebies.

A win for Barcelona would complete their journey (drink!) from contenders to undisputed champions. In one fell swoop they can put 2019 to bed, retain the Champions League, beat Lyon for the first time in their history and prove, beyond even unreasonable doubt, that they are the world’s best team.

Lyon would love to make the picture a whole lot fuzzier. If they win, last season might be dismissed as a one-off rather than a changing of the guard. But for now, Lyon are in the unusual position of starting as underdogs. They are in the process of recovering from a miserable 2020-21, in which Paris Saint-Germain ended their long reigns as French and European champions (14 and five years respectively). Hegerberg missed the whole season with an ACL injury, so you could understand if Lyon put an asterisk against their underachievement.

Lyon got some revenge by beating PSG in this year’s Champions League semi-finals, and will regain the French title with a game to spare if they avoid defeat in Paris next weekend. It’s too early to say they are back to their best, but they are at least back where they belong – in a Champions League final.

Kick off 6pm.