Destiny brought together the two teams eliminated from the last edition of the Queen’s Cup due to poor alignment. This time, against each other, and it was Barcelona who, without flipping a coin, beat Sevilla in the quarter-finals (8-0) and returned to the eight-goal victory of the last meeting between the two teams last time. November in the League. A nightmare for Cristian Toro that has become recurring and which neither he nor Jonatan Giráldez expected, who, before the match, claimed that he could not repeat this exorbitant result. But after the meeting, his words resonated with modesty and caution, but not with reality. Barça came out to repeat it as if it never happened. The Queen of Cups – there are already nine filling her showcase – won, once again, resoundingly, without any option for the Sevillians and surpassing them to reach the semi-final.
8
Cata Coll, Ona Batlle, Irene Paredes, Lucy Bronze, Ingrid Engen, Aitana Bonmatí, Vicky López, Patri Guijarro, Salma Paralluelo, Caroline Graham Hansen and Mariona Caldentey
0
Esther Sullastres, Diana Gomes, Rosa Otermín, Teresa Mérida, Lucía Rodríguez, María Pérez, Gemma Gili, Toni Payne, Pamela González, Inma Gabarro and Cristina Martín-Prieto
Goals 1-0 minutes. 6: Salma Paralluelo. 2-0 minutes. 16: Aitana Bonmati. 3-0 minutes. 18: Mariona Caldentey. 4-0 minutes. 33: Mariona Caldentey. 5-0 minutes. 37: Salma Paralluelo. 6-0 minutes. 40: Caroline Graham Hansen. 7-0 minutes. 59: Aitana Bonmati. 8-0 minutes. 77: Ariana Arias.
Arbitrator Alicia Espinosa Rios
Yellow cards Cata Coll (min. 44) and Teresa Mérida (min. 71)
In this last duel between the two teams, Cristian Toro’s team fell asleep with the four goals scored by Salma Paralluelo in just forty minutes. The young sprinter wanted to repeat her feat and her dream, and she was the first to relive the nightmares of Seville: she hesitated and looked around, undecided if she should leave the ball to the tireless owner of the left back, Ona Batlle, or try his luck. He did not accompany him during the last matches. But he made the right decision with a cross kick that opened the score that didn’t stop bleeding.
He didn’t get tired, Salma, and was involved in Barcelona’s next two goals. Aitana, between the orders of the group, the ups and downs all over the field, active both in defense and in attack in association with her dance partner Graham Hansen, wanted to score her goal after ten minutes. And the smallest on the field, but no less daring, Vicky López found Mariona Caldentey’s boot at the last minute to score the third and shortly after converted a penalty in the fourth.
Jonatan Giráldez saw him with his hands in his pockets. A few meters to his right, Cristian Toro’s reality was very different: he shook his head every time Barcelona approached the rival area. Sevilla, which started cautiously, became unstructured in defense. The Sevillians arrived after eight wins in ten games, but came out with nightmares. They put their hands on their waists, static and impassive after a 5-0 from the goal instinct of Paralluelo and a 6-0 from the incisive Hansen.
In 40 minutes, the Barça team opened one of the biggest wounds of the season. Meanwhile, Seville, impassive. They also failed to find their top scorer, Martín-Prieto, who received a strike from Cata Coll during an impulsive run by the goalkeeper. Nothing changed in the second half. Sullastres made the mistake of leaving a dead ball at Aitana’s feet after a shot from Paralluelo, and the Ballon d’Or only had to push him over to add the seventh.
Tied, Barcelona took advantage of the young players of the second team: Giulia Dragoni, a precocious Italian international, and Ari Arias, the top scorer of the reserve team and essential in the future as center forward after the departure of Asisat Oshoala . The second wanted to leave his mark to trace his path in the first team, and scored the eighth goal against a Sevilla unable to recover the ball, to cut off the constant progressions of his rival and to approach the calm goal of Cata .
The 3,438 supporters of the Estadi Johan Cruyff sang and celebrated. They didn’t fill the stands, but there was no need for the players’ hunger to be insatiable. One more step in Barcelona’s dream season: with the Super Cup pending, unbeatable League leaders and with a seemingly calm run through Europe in the Champions League, the Queen’s Cup becomes more real after having reached the semi-finals.
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