Chelsea’s Niamh Charles, left, fights for the ball with Barcelona’s Caroline Graham Hansen during the Women’s Champions League semifina at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain.
| Photo Credit: AP
Barcelona reached its third straight Women’s Champions League final after a 1-1 draw with Chelsea on Thursday in front of more than 72,000 fans at Camp Nou Stadium.
The Catalan club advanced 2-1 on aggregate after having won the semifinal first leg 1-0 in London on Saturday.
Barcelona lost last year’s final to Lyon, but the previous year it beat Chelsea for its first continental title.
Barcelona will face either Arsenal or Wolfsburg, whose second leg is on Monday in London after a 2-2 draw in Germany over the weekend.
The final will be on June 3 in Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
Caroline Graham Hansen, who scored Barcelona’s winner in the first leg, put the Catalan club ahead at Camp Nou in a breakaway the 63rd minute. Chelsea equalized with Guro Reiten in the 67th.
Two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas was back in Barcelona’s squad but stayed on the bench the whole match. She was sidelined for about nine months after tearing her ACL last July.
