UEFA Women’s Champions League: Valiant Wolfsburg bow out after extra-time defeat to OL Lyonnes
UEFA Women’s Champions League: Valiant Wolfsburg bow out after extra-time defeat to OL Lyonnes OL Lyonnes reached the Champions League semi-final for the 15th time with a 4-1 aggregate win over Wolfsburg Frauen. The two-time champions took the game into extra-time before conceding three in the last 20 minutes of the tie. OL Lyonnes put their visitors under sustained pressure starting from the first whistle.
The Frauen-Bundesliga side limited their high-caliber opponents to half-chances last week, but it was inevitable that they conceded quality chances here as Jonatan Giráldez’s troops played with more authority. And they leveled the score with their first real chance of the night. Lily Yohannes’ deflected effort ended up in the net the same way Lineth Beerensteyn scored the previous week.
Wolfsburg’s captain, Janina Minge, who played the latter stage of the weekend’s 3-3 draw with Union Berlin as a goalkeeper, was the unfortunate party. The hosts had two great opportunities to take the lead in the tie in the following five minutes. Selma Bacha nearly found her range from outside the box before Stina Johannes made her first saves of the game from Lilly Yohannes’ close-range effort and Kadidiatou Diani’s shot from distance.
Wolfsburg had no shots of any kind during the first-half, while they conceded 16 attempts by the hosts. Lilly Yohannes continued that trend after the restart with the first chance inside two minutes. The one-way traffic showed no signs of slowing down, with Johannes alert to parry Bacha’s superb volley.
However, Wolfsburg managed to valiantly defend their box as Ada Hegerberg was unable to get to the end of countless crosses from wide areas. After conceding 25 attempts, the visitors nearly made the most of their first sight in goal in the 77th minute. Substitute Janou Levels got at the end of Svenja Huth’s superb delivery, but her effort was well saved by Christiane Endler.