In the midst of the public conversation about whether Barcelona snatched football hegemony in Europe from Olympique Lyon on Saturday in San Mamés by knocking them down for the first time in a Champions League final, there was a superiority that was evident: the social one, the club’s capacity Barça to mobilize tens of thousands of followers to Bilbao while the eight-time continental champion saw how there were only a handful – around 2,000 – of Lyon fans in the stands of the stadium. San Mamés and the Biscayan capital were dyed in Barça colors throughout the weekend. The arrival of Catalan fans was so formidable that the attendance record for a Champions League final was broken with 50,827 spectators, above the 50,212 that filled the Munich Olympic Stadium in 2012 in the second orejona from Lyon.
UEFA estimates that more than 35,000 Barça fans traveled this weekend to cheer on the team at San Mamés. On Saturday, with the hotels full, the tram and buses ran with delays due to the overload of people and it was almost impossible to get a table to have something on a terrace on a day with sunny and pleasant weather that invited you to enjoy the Famous pintxos from Bilbao. The culé mobilization was historic, a priori only behind the 45,000 people who came to Seville to witness the 1986 Champions League final lost against Steaua de Bucharest. But in the stadium the feeling was that the team led by Aitana Bonmatí was playing at home and that there were not only 35,000 fans, but that they occupied practically all of the stands except for a couple of sectors where the French fans were placed. . “When we came by bus and saw all the streets full around the stadium, I got goosebumps,” said Bonmatí, chosen best player in the final, after the game.
The Barça women’s team is a very strong attraction for Barcelona fans. In a Annus horribilis For the men’s football section, the women’s team has achieved an unprecedented series of titles – League, Cup, Champions and Super Cup – and has mobilized its social mass in a way that has not been remembered for almost 40 years in the club. Their situation contrasts with that of Lyon, which has dominated Europe for almost a decade and a half but has never achieved the impact on the fans that Barça has achieved after professionalizing the women’s section in 2015, 11 years after the French did so. . “Barcelona is a much more powerful club than Lyon. Even with the competitiveness of other big clubs that are now also supporting women’s football, Barça continues to lead it and can do so for many more years,” says Fiorentina forward Vero Boquete, the first great icon of football in Spain played by women. .
Bonmatí and Jonatan Giráldez, the Barça coach, passed by at the end of the final due to the debate about whether continental dominance has changed after the club has won three of the last four Champions Leagues – Saturday’s, finally defeating their black beast—and the last three Ballon d’Or awards—two Alexia Putellas and one Bonmatí—. The team has pending issues that will be essential to corroborate football hegemony in the coming years and try to get closer to Lyon’s eight titles. In the midst of the economic problems that the entity is going through, two starters in the final such as Mariona Caldentey and Lucy Bronze have not renewed and the coach of the historic poker team will leave the bench at the end of the year to go to the United States, but the football and social impact of this generation of footballers is indisputable.
Barcelona has the most valuable squad on the market (about 5.6 million euros), above Chelsea (4.1) and Lyon (4) – according to the specialized website Soccerdona – and has managed to overcome the social impact that the French team had during his reign. The Barça team has more than 6.2 million followers on Instagram and more than 1.1 on X (formerly Twitter), compared to Lyon’s 249,000 and 139,000, respectively. The progression is enormous since Barça’s first Champions League final in 2019 against OL, when the French managed to bring more fans to Budapest than the Catalans in a stadium with a capacity for 22,000 people that was not full. Three years later, in the decisive duel in Turin again between them, not all the tickets were sold: 32,257 spectators in a venue with a capacity for 41,507. “We have to congratulate Barcelona for this passion of its fans. I can imagine what their players feel with so many people supporting them in the stands. It is something that we also have to achieve in France and learn from these lessons,” said the French club’s coach, Sonia Bompastor, in the press conference after the final.
In Plaza Catalunya, in the center of Barcelona, some 1,000 people followed the match – the most watched women’s Champions League final in history on La 1 with a 13.8% audience share – and this Sunday it is expected in the capital Catalan a massive reception for the four-time champions. Meanwhile, Lyon faces a future with some uncertainties at a critical moment for the club. First, because of the situation on her bench: the English media suggest that Bompastor, the first woman to win the Champions League as a player and coach, is close to signing for Chelsea, although the coach did not want to talk about the subject yesterday at the conference. press. And, above all, due to the change in the presidency of the entity. Jean-Michel Aulas, the man who bought FC Lyon – an amateur team – in 2004 and changed the history of the team by betting like no one had done until then on the professionalization of the women’s section, left the management a year ago after South Korean businesswoman Michele Kang – also owner of the Washington Spirit – took control of the club. “Aulas is the great author of this team and this domain. You always need to have someone who really trusts in the project, and he did it from the beginning, he was a lover of women’s football. I would not understand a Lyon this ambitious without that president, and the doubt that arises is whether they will be able to maintain that level without him,” summarizes Vero Boquete.
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