Chelsea showcase tactical evolution as their self-restraint frustrates Barcelona – The Athletic

What was the difference between Chelsea’s humiliating 8-2 aggregate defeat against Barcelona in April and being inches away from beating them in November?

“My tactics,” head coach Sonia Bompastor said forthrightly after Thursday’s 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge.

“Probably, last season, I was too ambitious. I wanted to try to be really high with a high block, high press, being really aggressive. But when you play against Barcelona, this team has so much technicality in their team and I think it’s difficult. So you have to almost be perfect if you want to do that.

“So I think we changed that plan a little bit, and it worked better.”

The way Bompastor’s side crashed out of the Champions League semi-finals was the only blot on her first season in charge, where Chelsea won an unbeaten domestic treble. It made Barcelona perhaps the first opponents this season to call themselves favourites against this side — particularly after a draw with last-placed Liverpool in the Women’s Super League at the weekend.

To have held out against the Catalans, who have won this competition three times in the past five seasons, would have been satisfactory for Chelsea fans. Matching them was unexpected. Looking likelier to win this league-phase encounter was very impressive.

Ellie Carpenter opened the scoring with a superb run and finish in the 16th minute, only for Ewa Pajor to level less than 10 minutes later. Neither side could find a winner in the second half, but Chelsea came closest when Catarina Macario headed in but it was disallowed.

Ellie Carpenter opens the scoring for Chelsea (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)

“It was very different to the last two semi-finals,” Barcelona head coach Pere Romeu said after the game (they also beat the west Londoners, 2-1 on aggregate, at that stage of the 2023-24 Champions League, en route to lifting the trophy), “especially because Chelsea matched our midfield players. So today they matched all the players we had, and that limited our organisation.”

The naivety of April’s semi-final that Bompastor alluded to was replaced last night by a tight, disciplined maturity few teams are capable of executing against Barcelona.

Chelsea deviated slightly from their usual set-up by playing Alyssa Thompson alongside Aggie Beever-Jones in a front two, allowing Wieke Kaptein to drop slightly deeper. Kaptein, Erin Cuthbert and Keira Walsh did a superb job closing down Barcelona’s usually fluid, dynamic midfield, helped by Lucy Bronze pushing up to mark Claudia Pina, while wing-backs Carpenter and Sandy Baltimore marshalled the wide areas.

“I was saying to (fellow Chelsea defender) Naomi Girma after the game that we were playing chess,” Bronze told the BBC post-match. “I’m more tired from talking and having to look and check my shoulder than actually running. It was something that we have only been able to practise for the past two days with the quick turnaround (from the Liverpool game).”

Chelsea did well to maintain their discipline and patience throughout — there were certainly occasions they could have tried to crank up the pressure. Multiple times, Barcelona goalkeeper Cata Coll was allowed to have the ball at her feet for so long, under no pressure, that it drew bored boos from the crowd.

But that self-restraint in not sacrificing bodies to a high press allowed Chelsea to clog up the central corridor and stopped Barca generating more clear-cut chances, despite their majority of possession (58 per cent to 42 per cent).

A frustrating period that has seen them drop points twice in as many games in the WSL, ceding first place to Manchester City, could have increased Chelsea’s temptation to go into this match with all guns blazing. Instead, Bompastor praised her side’s discipline, and her satisfaction with how they executed the game plan was clear from the fact she only made one substitution. Lauren James, Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Millie Bright all remained on the bench.

The only tweak Bompastor made almost had an immediate impact. Macario replaced Beever-Jones 18 minutes from time, adding a touch more physicality to their attack, and headed past Coll with her first touch only for the flag to be raised.

Catarina Macario celebrates only to be frustrated by an assistant’s flag for offside (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

Macario also came close to setting up Carpenter for a winner with a smart back-heel, but the Australian shot past the far post. Kaptein hit the woodwork in the first half, too. This draw maintains Chelsea’s unbeaten start to the campaign, makes them the first team to take points off Barcelona in the Champions League this season, and leaves them one point off the automatic quarter-final qualification places with two games to play — but it should have been more.

“When you look at the statistics and the number of chances we created in the game tonight, we’ve had the opportunities to win the game,” Bompastor said. “So, (we’re) frustrated for that reason, but again, overall also a lot of positives to take and we know in these Champions League games and in the important games, you need to be clinical.”

Chelsea will regret the wastefulness in front of goal that has popped up in several games this season. They could also have been more clinical and quicker to launch attacks at times last night — Thompson, in her more advanced role, looked like a fuse waiting to be lit as she waited to sprint onto long balls that rarely came. There was perhaps a little too much caution in those moments but, as Chelsea learned the hard way in April, that is better than the alternative when you’re playing Barcelona.

“We look at the game tomorrow being an opportunity for us to show our best version of ourselves,” Bompastor had said before the match.

This might not have been Chelsea at their goalscoring best, but it was them at their most professional.

And, for that, Bompastor deserves a lot of credit.