Catarina Macario celebrates after scoring her first penalty of the match against Real Madrid.Photograph: Ángel Martínez/Getty Images
For much of a cold night Chelsea were under pressure, taken to the line by Real Madrid, but ten minutes of Catarina Macario was enough to maintain their unbeaten record and take them through as winners of Group B. Six meetings later and still this is a fixture the Spanish club can’t win but they may never have been closer. Leading thanks to a goal from the immensely impressive Caroline Weir, they were eventually defeated by the American – who came on at half-time and belted in two penalties.
In the end that was enough, Madrid pushing to the last but unable to find a way through that they might have felt they deserved after an early goal that came as a statement of intent in the opening period where Chelsea never managed to get control, Erin Cuthbert often a lone figure surrounded by white. Madrid kept possession, letting their opponents see the ball but not touch it, and although it was worked all the way back to their goalkeeper, Misa Rodríguez, it was not a move to nowhere. Instead, it served as the starting point for a sequence of twelve more passes that ended with it in the net at the other end.
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Chelsea had been drawn in a long way, turned, and exposed, Madrid finding space opening before them. Olga Carmona bounced off Lucy Bronze as they competed for the one slightly loose pass of the move and found Linda Caicedo, who gave it to Weir. The Scot’s high shot was reached by Hannah Hampton’s hand – but her swipe at it succeeded only in sending it looping in off the post.
The game was only seven minutes in but that was already Weir’s second effort and she would cause Chelsea problems often. A gorgeous bit of skill, bamboozling Aggie Beever-Jones and then Millie Bright provided an opportunity from which Carmona shot wide. Chelsea did respond, Misa pushing over from Guro Reiten and then saving from Niamh Charles after she had got in behind Madrid when Sheila García misjudged the bounce, while there had been a dash through from Mayra Ramírez too. But the home side looked the more accomplished here.
Yet if Madrid were worthy of their lead at the break, they had it taken from them immediately after it, victims of a ten minute storm brought by Macario and the misfortune of their captain, Carmona.
Macario had replaced Ramírez at the break and inside thirty seconds had the ball in the net which, even if she was offside then, was an immediate indication that this was different now. Within two minutes, she was in again: this time, the shot faded just wide. And then a minute after that a neat drag just inside the area saw her taken down by Carmona. From the spot, she smashed the ball into the roof of the net. Soon, she was doing it again: same space, same pace. This time, it was a Carmona handball after the ball flicked up off the heel of Wieke Kaptein that gave her the opportunity. Ten minutes and five minutes into the second half, Chelsea led.
Madrid weren’t going to let this go. Hampton pushed away a long effort from Filippa Angeldahl who, emboldened by that, tried again the next time. That flew over but Madrid insisted, Melanie Leupolz’s swinging free-kick hitting the bar and an Angeldahl dash creating the first of two great chances wasted by Naomie Feller, who shot wide then and swiped wildly over when left one-on-one by a clever delivery from Weir next. The Scot, superb throughout, had two free-kicks: one bent past the post, the other curled over the bar. Still they came, all the way to the last when Feller headed over on 92 minutes. In the end though, a ten-minute storm had done it.