by Aisha Zahira
On the 25th of May 2024, a historical match between two football giants took place at the Bilbao Stadium in Basque Country.
Barcelona Femini, the Catalan club, met their unbeaten French rival Olympique Lyonnais for the fourth time in a major competition, both hoping to take home the Champions League trophy.
Odds were greatly stacked against Barcelona as they had lost four out of four of their competitive matches against Lyonnais. This narrative sparked engagement, with their final being attended by a monumental 50,827 people - marking a new record for the tournament.
However, achieving this record and witnessing this level of play in European women’s football was not easy.
Olympique Lyonnais, or more colloquially ‘Lyon’, was formed in 2004. Shrugging off their previous brand as ‘FC Lyon’ (which it had retained since the ‘70s), their aim was to surpass every other team, not just in France, but in the world. With the rebrand came a reimagining of what a women’s team could be.
As opposed to being sidelined as just a lesser version of the men’s teams with makeshift training rooms, limited salaries, and the half-baked plans many women’s teams are still plagued with today, Lyon’s model provided long-term, economic investment and the best training facilities apropos of the talent they wished to cultivate.
Twenty years ago, this was an unprecedented mindset.
It paid off. The team’s careful cultivation supported women, with many becoming some of the world’s best players as well as providing a platform for those who already were.
Lyon is currently captained by 6-foot-2, centre-back defender Wendie Renard, who joined in 2006 at just sixteen-years old. Growing into a world-renowned player with the team and leading them since 2013, in that time they’ve brought home fourteen French league titles and eight Champions League trophies. Her expertise has also seen her captain the French national team. Renard is just one example of the talent on show in Lyon.
Their striker, Ada Hegerberg, was the first woman to win the Ballon D’or Femini, an award that recognises the best performing player over the past footballing season.
Eugenie Le Sommer, another French icon, is a staple of the team and Lyon’s serious training academy has seen Selma Bacha, who joined when she was only eight, progress into a staple of the starting line-up. They’ve even managed to entice Kadidiatou Diani into joining, after she spent six years with their main rival, Paris Saint-Germain.
This is all to say that Lyon have a solid team, not because of luck or coincidence, but because of intentional targets paired with economic influxes aimed at progression. They were the first association to show Europe how a women’s team interested in winning should be structured and their influence cannot be understated.
One team that were greatly inspired by Lyon was Barcelona Femini, the women’s arm of the Barcelona football organisation. Barcelona has also had intermittent women’s teams since 1970, but only became legitimately professionalised in 2015, more than a decade after Lyon.
In fact, when Lyon was just getting started, Barcelona was threatened with being dissolved. In the few years leading up to 2015, Barcelona rose to great heights domestically, winning the Copa de la Reina (a Spanish competition) three times between 2011 and 2014.
Like many women’s teams today, success did not always pair with stability. Players could not live off the income, were using old kits, and training at night in-between their full time jobs. When they were professionalised, it was with the aim of playing in the Champions League, a tournament that brings together only the best teams in Europe.
Even this move did not result in change. Previous captain Vicky Losada, who has intermittently been part of the team since 2006, alongside Melanie Serrano, saw the team grow, lose, rise again, change, falter, and finally, win.
Combined, the two have played 32 seasons with Barcelona, leaving in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
So, how did they become a team that could seriously challenge Lyon?
As the French side demonstrated; money, training facilities, and respect go a long way when it comes to retaining players.
This has been the case for international stars Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati, both integral parts of the club internally and to its position on a world stage having won Ballon D’or’s - with Putellas being awarded twice in a row.
The current Barcelona captain, Alexia ‘La Reina’ Putellas, can be credited for revolutionising the attention given to women’s football. Having initially been displaced by earlier iterations of the team, Putellas rejoined in 2012 and was involved first-hand with their run-up to professionalisation a few years later. She has since made more than 400 appearances for the club and become their all-time top goalscorer. With her innate technique and ability, it is perhaps futile to wonder where she would be without her team, but her development with Barcelona has greatly aided in setting a standard for women’s players.
Importantly, the club understands what she means for the team and the game, respecting her during her injury and allowing her the time to regain her footing without pressure. As they say, “Barcelona is Alexia and Alexia is Barcelona.”
Both teams have experienced pressure to succeed: Lyon because of the efforts put into their curation, Barcelona because of their turbulent history. No doubt both histories have lent themselves to the narrative leading into the final. Each side have shown the years-long drive to get to where they are now, the wins and the losses, the unseen efforts, injuries, and fights. With their fifth meeting, it seems a new wave has emerged.
Edited by Emily Duff