Exclusive: 'Always find a way to win' - Chelsea's Keira Walsh 'excited' for clash against former team Barcelona in Women's Champions League
Updated 20/04/2025 at 13:49 GMT+1
Ahead of Chelsea's Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, former Barca midfielder Keira Walsh chats to Pete Sharland about the tie. Walsh discusses how excited she is to face her old team, why she believes Chelsea are built to go through, and the rise of young star Aggie Beever-Jones. Watch Barcelona v Chelsea live on TNT Sports and discovery+.
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The first question is sometimes the obvious one to ask.
As Chelsea prepare to play against FC Barcelona, the defending European champions, in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final, the clash holds special significance for midfielder Keira Walsh.
Not only did Walsh grow up watching Barca and being inspired by their style, she played for the Catalan giants, joining them in September 2022 from Manchester City.
Walsh won Liga F and the Champions League back-to-back before returning to England to join Chelsea this past January. Now, she’s back in Spain, this time in blue to play against Barca, live on TNT Sports and discovery+ in the UK.
"I'm excited to obviously see my ex-teammates," Walsh tells TNT Sports ahead of the game. "I played with them for two-and-a-half years so I've got some good friends on that team but it's going to be a good game and these are the games you want to be playing in as a professional footballer."
Walsh admits that she was aware there was always a chance of this happening when she made the switch in January but it wasn’t at the forefront of her mind.
She’s been in touch with former team-mates such as Jana Fernandez, but only to organise a coffee date to catch up after her hectic move in January.
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She is not the only former Blaugrana in the squad. Full-back Lucy Bronze joined Barcelona in the same summer as Walsh, also from Manchester City, and she moved to Chelsea this past summer.
Walsh says that manager Sonia Bompastor and her assistant Camille Abily have tapped into both Walsh and Bronze for some intel but nothing too extensive.
"I think also we just have to take confidence from how we play. I think you can over-analyse and over-focus on the opposition too much and forget how you want to play in terms of your identity," she adds.
"So we spoke a little bit but with Barcelona, you can overthink. They just play free-flowing football so it's difficult to talk about. For us, we need to focus on what we're good at, take confidence from that, and just focus on reaching the final of the Champions League.
"Obviously we've spoken about how we want to play but I think that's kind of the beauty of this Chelsea team, that they can win however we play, we can win with any style of football.
"That's a little bit different to Barcelona, they tend to just play one style. From my own experience, I have played against Chelsea and we’ve seen that they can mix it up and can still be so competitive and a top team either way. That's the exciting thing about this team, that we can always find a way to win."
Walsh is in that interesting period of a footballer’s career where they’re not quite so experienced that they are a real veteran of a squad but have still seen so much that they find themselves being leaned on by younger players. It’s a balance that Walsh admits is tough but she tries to lead in her own way, as best she can.
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"Obviously, my first Champions League was being down 2-0 at half-time [to Wolfsburg in the 2023 final] and coming back to win 3-2. Again that's an experience, going into these games, when your back is against the wall that I think you can draw on.
"It’s about the things I’ve felt before. The girls haven't asked me specifically but I think in the tough moments, you can kind of look to those moments. I mean, I still look at Millie [Bright] and Lucy to see, how they can get us through the game?
"With Millie and Lucy, they are vocal leaders and I obviously go about it in a different way. I would say probably I try and influence the game in the way that I play.
"I don't think I'm as loud as those two. But that's when I do look at them, for their leadership and how vocal they are and how they kind of coach the players through the game and get the team up.
"Then obviously with less experienced players, they also do the same, but I just try to influence it in the way that I play and try to keep calm and bring that side to it."
In terms of the younger players, Walsh hails the group as "unbelievable" but the topical player is undoubtedly Aggie Beever-Jones, who has come into her own after a slow start to the season.
Beever-Jones also recently scored her first England goal in the same game that Walsh scored her first, a 5-0 demolition of Belgium. For Walsh, it’s Beever-Jones’ unpredictability that makes her so dangerous.
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Keira Walsh and Aggie Beever-Jones of England celebrate following their team's victory in the UEFA Women's Nations League 2024/25 Grp A3 MD3 match between England and Belgium
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"She's really raw. She does a lot of things off the cuff and just in general, even in the men's game, same as the women’s, you see a lot of teams structured, like really structured. And I think you don't see many players who are willing to go and beat someone or do something more unpredictable.
"That's rare nowadays and I think Aggie does that. She really plays off the cuff, and she does things that you don't expect. For example, she will just turn and bang one in the top corner when you’re more expecting her to pass the ball.
"I think now she's got a lot of confidence and obviously she was playing really well with England, and they can see she's aggressive, she dribbles, she always tries to play forward and take the team with her."
Walsh, Beever-Jones and the rest of the Chelsea squad will take on Barcelona on Sunday at 17:00 BST and you can watch the game live on TNT Sports and discovery+.
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