Barcelona Femení Set Another Women’s World Record Attendance At Camp Nou

They said it could not be done again, but just three weeks after breaking the 23-year-old world record for an attendance at a women’s soccer match at Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, FC Barcelona Femení drew an even larger crowd of 91,648 to the same venue to once more create sporting history.

The European champions once more put on an exhibition of soccer, again scoring five goals in the first leg of the UEFA

EFA
Women’s Champions League semi-final against German league leaders VfL Wolfsburg.

The new figure still falls short of two crowd figures at the unofficial 1971 Women’s World Cup in Mexico when a reported 100,000 watched the Opening Game of the tournament which was surpassed by the estimated 110,000 who saw the final between hosts Mexico and Denmark, both games were played at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. However, as the competition did fall within the jurisdiction of soccer’s world governing body, FIFA, neither figure is considered an official world record by them.

After selling out the initial allocation of 85,000 tickets for the semi-finals in just over 24 hours, there had been doubt if they could match the previous record attendance of 91,553 set on March 30 during a 5-2 win over Real Madrid when the final 6,000 tickets released two days ago did not sell out. Just hours before the game, tickets in five categories were still available.

However, the fervor around the women’s team generated by selling-out Camp Nou just three weeks ago coupled with the game coming on the eve of the Festival of Sant Jordi (St. George’s Day), a public holiday in the state of Catalonia contrived to swell up the attendance figure in a stadium which was once more half-full when the game began at 1845 local time.

In the game, Ballon D’Or winner, Alexia Putellas once more stole the headlines with a Player of the Match performance scoring the fourth and fifth goals. Yet by that time, Barcelona had already won the match, scoring three goals in a devastating opening half hour spell.

On her 25th birthday, Dutch striker Jill Roord pulled one goal back in the second half before Putellas won and converted a late penalty to make the final score 5-1 ahead of the second leg next weekend at the Volkswagen Arena in Wolfsburg.

Barcelona have now won all 40 matches they have played this season and scored in 87 consecutive games since losing to Wolfsburg in the 2020 UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final in San Sebastian. Putellas’ two goals took her past Wolfsburg striker Tabea Waßmuth as the competition’s leading goalscorer this season with ten goals.

It remains to be seen if the match will also break the viewership figures which were set in the quarter-final against Real Madrid with an incredible 2,676,238 live views for DAZN Group, the tournament’s worldwide broadcaster, across it’s platforms and UEFA Women’s Champions League YouTube channel.