Chelsea: Sonia Bompastor's search for perfection ends with Champions League humiliation | OneFootball

Chelsea faced a harsh reality check as they crashed out of the Champions League

Your matchday briefing on Chelsea, featuring team news and expert analysis from Malik Ouzia

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Another European campaign comes to a premature close, and Chelsea’s dreams of Women’s Champions glory will remain just that. But this season was supposed to be different.

Barcelona qualify for their fifth UWCL final in as many years

AP

Tangible disappointment hung in the air. A bewildered Hannah Hampton sat on the pitch in disbelief as Lucy Bronze remonstrated with her team-mates.

Domestic success is no longer good enough for Chelsea - it is the bare minimum. While a domestic treble will of course be appreciated, a Champions League title remains the North Star and just barely out of reach. It even evaded legendary manager Emma Hayes throughout her 12-year tenure at the club, during which time she won 16 domestic honours.

The club has poured unimaginable resources into winning the UWCL. They broke the world transfer record to sign striker Mayra Ramirez, then broke it again a year later to make Naomi Girma the first million-dollar woman in football.

They poached key players from Barcelona’s UWCL-winning squads of the past two seasons in Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh, who have seven winners’ medals between them.

If you can’t beat them, sign them was the sentiment. But even that was not enough.

Barcelona were more than equal to any threat Chelsea posed

Chelsea FC via Getty Images

Sonia Bompastor, the first woman to win the Champions League as both a player and a manager, was to tie it all together. She did so in her first season in charge of Lyon, and many tipped her to do the same on arrival in south-west London.

However, as Chelsea has been so regularly reminded since Clearlake Capital took over the club, money does not necessarily buy happiness.

They fell well short against Barcelona. They fell flat. For the club to have invested so heavily with the aim of winning the Champions League, to not even reach the final is at the very least humbling. To fall at the same hurdle to the same opponent in three consecutive years will not mitigate the disappointment.

The first half hour of Sunday’s match provided positives. Chelsea matched Barcelona through the opening exchanges, but could not finish their chances and were subsequently punished.

Chelsea have some tough questions to answer after their latest elimination

AP

As the Barcelona squad could be heard celebrating in the next room, Bompastor hinted that there was work still to do, saying her squad was not mentally strong enough to mount the comeback required of them. She is not making excuses, though, and is ready to face up to the side’s shortcomings.

Ever the pragmatist, she will make do with a treble: “I think for a first season it will be good. Not perfect, not ideal, but a good one. Sometimes that is how it works.”

For those in the stands, though, numbering close to 30,000 today, a treble is old news. They have been there and done that. Recently.

The Champions League is the final frontier, the only peak yet to be summited. They will not settle until the UWCL is hoisted at Stamford Bridge.