Elusive European title closer with the arrival of stars and enough talent for two formidable starting XIs

Have Chelsea built a team capable of winning the Champions League? The short answer is yes. The longer context is that their burning desire for European glory is no secret. It was the only trophy missing from their cabinet under Emma Hayes. The 2020-21 finalists have spent years focusing on what they believed it would take to bridge a gap to Lyon caused primarily by the gap in investment. Now, with the French club hunted down by Barcelona, who have won the Champions League three times in the past four years, the focus has expanded.

How to do it, though? In the 2020-21 final Chelsea were swept aside, conceding four times in 36 minutes to a Barcelona team fuelled by the pain of a not dissimilar defeat by Lyon two seasons before in their first final. Hayes’s team did not follow a similar path, though. After their first final the gap seemed to get bigger, an anomaly season when they failed to escape the group stage in its introductory year being followed by back-to-back semi-final exits at the hands of Barça.