Barcelona’s victory over Actual Madrid within the Champions League quarter-finals on Wednesday watched 91553 followers on the Nou Camp, making it a historic second for girls’s soccer in Europe.
The hosts got here from behind to defeat their arch-rivals 5-2 to achieve the semi-finals with a 8-3 combination win, establishing a round-of-four confrontation with Arsenal or Wolfsburg.
The earlier highest participation in a girls’s membership match got here in 2019 when 60,739 individuals witnessed Barcelona’s 2-0 win over Atletico Madrid on the Wanda Metropolitano. The earlier document for the Champions League was 50,212 matches between Lyon and Frankfurt in Munich in 2012.
It was additionally the primary time {that a} Barcelona girls’s workforce performed a match on the Nou Camp in entrance of a crowd. They’ve performed on the sector earlier than however behind closed doorways as a consequence of restrictions because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Carney: The El Clasico crowd made me emotional
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Karen Carney believes that girls’s soccer has gone additional, as over 90,000 watched Barcelona beat Actual Madrid on the Nou Camp within the Champions League.
Karen Carney, Sky Sports activities’ main WSL host:
“It was unbelievable. I truly took off my ex-players’ personal critic hat and simply watched the match, I used to be screaming on the TV. I could not imagine there have been 91,000 individuals there for a girls’s match.
“Credit score to Barcelona and everybody else concerned in participating the followers there, for making this occur and for offering such a implausible present and spectacle, management in girls’s soccer.
“On the finish, Alexia Putellas was banging the drum, singing songs with the group and the remainder of the workforce. I used to be a bit of touched and I am so pleased with that.
“For a very long time, girls’s soccer has been after this, and now to do this, it is main the best way and each different workforce has to observe now. It has been superb.
“I’ve all the time mentioned that girls’s soccer must be part of and never removed from. You may see that there’s area to generate massive crowds and attendance. If it is marketed correctly as we noticed final night time and due to Barcelona, in the event you promote it El Clasico the best means, you may get followers As a result of there’s an viewers.
“That’s precisely what we must always proceed to do right here with girls’s soccer within the UK as a result of there’s an viewers and individuals who wish to watch it, it must be offered in the best means and the product will proceed to promote itself after that.”
Tolowi: Girls’s soccer may be rowdy, emotional and tribal like every other sport
Anton Toloui in Barcelona:
“The match on the Camp Nou was greater than only a spectacle, it was an announcement. It was proof that girls’s soccer may be as loud, boisterous, emotional and tribal as every other sport on the planet and must be on the largest stage ever.
“Numerous us went to girls’s matches the place there have been loads of followers however the ambiance was good – for the necessity for a greater phrase.
“This was completely different. The massive previous stadium grew to become a cauldron of noise because the 91,000-plus cheered loudly for the perfect workforce in Europe in a really partisan means.
“Wednesday night time, town of Barcelona walked out with the identical enthusiasm, love and raucous ardour given to the likes of Crieff, Maradona and Messi – solely this time it was the adoration of the most recent Ballon d’Or winner, Putillas.
“I haven’t got the phrases to explain it. He was so magical. The match was over and the followers did not wish to go away. It was unbelievable.”
1000’s of followers have been sporting ‘Alexia 11’ T-shirts. Her face was plastered all around the Nou Camp aspect and it was the largest cheer of the night time as she scored her aim and bowed to the followers. Watching the mass celebration of a star patriot was implausible.
Then there’s the assertion that has been despatched to the remainder of the ‘massive golf equipment’ in Europe. Barcelona have aligned their skilled and educational construction to play in the identical fashion and have entry to the identical services no matter gender. They’ve opened the doorways of La Masia this season for the following wave of feminine expertise to reside alongside the Hand in hand with boys of the identical age and potential.
“And once they arrange such a giant match in one of the vital well-known arenas on the earth, they promoted it so closely that it ran out in three days. Chatting with the followers within the metropolis for the previous few days, you don’t help Barcelona and you shouldn’t choose the lads’s aspect or the ladies’s aspect – you She helps each of them with the identical ferocity.
“What number of supporters right here can say the identical?”
Marsh: Folks will help groups no matter gender
Actual Madrid faces Barcelona within the Girls’s Champions League in entrance of 91,553 followers on the Nou Camp
Charlotte Marsh from Sky Sports activities:
“This match seemed like a very long time coming. Not solely by way of attendance, but it surely has been touted as a record-breaker for fairly a while now. The promotion from Barcelona is such an enormous Champions League quarter-final match that this can be a must-watch, the one to be and to not be.” Missed it began as quickly because the lottery was made.
“It has additionally paid off because of some shrewd and tireless advertising of what has been, fairly frankly, the largest girls’s soccer match in Europe this season up to now.
“And that is one of many keys to this week’s huge success – promotion. Telling individuals the sport is going on and inspiring them to come back. It is one thing different golf equipment – particularly within the UK – can study and have been proven to be efficient. If soccer is there to look at, no matter gender, it’ll come out. individuals and help them.
“The followers’ response additionally confirmed that it was greater than only a stroll to the Nou Camp to see a spot for girls’s soccer as a placeholder for the lads’s workforce – it meant a lot extra. El Clásico signifies that.
“The Barcelona workforce bus can barely make its means by way of the crowds of followers, all waving flags and sporting these workforce colours. An incredible match for the workforce on that bus, and just about the opposite means round in the event you get to the Actual Madrid coach.
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1000’s gathered outdoors the Nou Camp forward of the UEFA Girls’s Champions League match
“The post-match scenes have been equally spectacular. Girls’s soccer has a status for an in depth relationship with its followers, and Botellas main the celebrations on drums and taking photos on the sector with the followers is simply the alternative.
“Barcelona males’s coach Xavi Hernandez and his former team-mate Carles Puyol have been within the stands to look at the historic match and the match undoubtedly introduced targets and pleasure.
“There was loads of concentrate on Barcelona, however let’s not neglect that Actual Madrid’s girls’s workforce remains to be in its infancy. Beginning with CD Tacon, their integration into the membership started in 2019 and it was solely renamed ‘Actual Madrid’ in July 2020 with a powerful With this title behind them, it’s undoubtedly solely a matter of time till they’re sturdy sufficient to problem Barcelona’s stronghold of girls’s soccer in Spain.
“Each groups contributed to an occasion that’s rightly celebrated as a historic and vital milestone for girls’s soccer. We hope it will likely be replicated and continued throughout Europe as the sport continues to interrupt down obstacles.”
Taylor: An incredible day for girls’s soccer
Manchester Metropolis girls’s coach Gareth Taylor:
“I believed it was superb. It is an unbelievable quantity of followers in a single match. Actually, it is a document and it might be excellent to interrupt it – except it was performed on the identical stadium.” [Camp Nou] repeatedly.
“I used to be beforehand speaking in regards to the availability of a girls’s sport to be proven now. Earlier than I took this position over 18 months in the past, I used to be actually struggling to discover a sport in any format.
“To go from that to having matches stay on Sky, doing matches on BBC – it is now simpler to entry. I believe it is nice. Yesterday was an ideal day for girls’s soccer. Transferring in the best path.”
