Barcelona broke the women’s attendance record as 91,553 fans watched them come from behind to beat bitter rivals Real Madrid 5-2 at Camp Nou on Wednesday and reach the Champions League semi-finals with an 8-3 aggregate win.
Leading 3-1 from the first leg and roared on by a partisan Nou Camp, the reigning champions won 5-2 on the night and 8-3 on aggregate to set up a last-four meeting with either Arsenal or Wolfsburg.
The previous highest turnout for a women’s club game came in 2019 when 60,739 people saw Barca beat Atletico Madrid 2-0 at Wanda Metropolitano.
Barcelona’s player celebrate at the final whistle
Wednesday evening’s crowd at Europe’s largest stadium also dwarfed the record for spectators at a women’s international, set when 80,203 fans witnessed the United States secure Olympic gold by beating Japan 2-1 at Wembley during London 2012.
Real briefly threatened to spoil the party after Olga Carmona’s penalty and a fine strike from Claudia Zornoza put them 2-1 ahead on the night following Mapi Leon’s early opener.
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Sky Sports’ Anton Toloui goes behind-the-scenes at Barcelona’s famous youth acadamy, La Masia.
But Barcelona were not to be denied the El Clasico bragging rights on a historic evening.
Second-half goals from Aitana Bonmati, Claudia Pina, Ballon d’Or holder Alexia Putellas and Caroline Hansen comfortably sent them through.
They will discover their semi-final opponents on Thursday when 2007 winners Arsenal travel to Volkswagen Arena to take on Wolfsburg with the tie level at 1-1 following last week’s first leg.