The tone for a dramatic evening of Champions League knockout football is set a little under an hour before kick-off at Stamford Bridge: a jubilant mass of Barcelona supporters waving blue and red scarves and flags as they go through their club’s songbook, marching down west London’s Fulham Road to an irresistible drumbeat.
So compelling is their energy that Sara, a Real Madrid fan who has brought along her friend Melissa to be hardcore Chelsea supporters for the day in the Matthew Harding Stand, could not help herself. “I was joining in because of the Spanish songs and Mel took a video of me and said, ‘I’m going to blackmail you’ with proof of my disloyalty,” she says with a smile.
The second leg of Chelsea Women’s semi-final battle with the great Barcelona Femeni is a box-office event with broad appeal. Outside the ground, allegiances range from casual to committed and not always in the direction expected. Kelly, milling around opposite the Britannia Gate wearing a half-and-half scarf, laughs as she comes clean.
“I’m actually an Arsenal fan rooting for Barcelona,” she says. “I’m about to find out where we’re sitting. That’s why I didn’t come in an Arsenal top.”
But the crowd that has closed this famous stretch of Fulham Road to traffic, which…
