Buchanan’s turn to shine

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This article was published 28/08/2020 (2190 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last weekend it was Alphonso Davies. This weekend it’s Kadeisha Buchanan. 

Never before have two Canadian footballers contested Champions League Finals the same year, never mind within seven days of each other. Of course, this is mostly down to Davies, who lifted the European Cup with Bayern Munich on Aug. 30.

Buchanan has done it three times before. In fact, never in her professional career has she concluded a campaign without winning club football’s biggest prize.

On Sunday, when she and Olympique Lyonnais kick off against VfL Wolfsburg at the Anoeta in San Sebastian, Spain (1 p.m., DAZN), Buchanan will have a chance to add yet another trophy to a shelf that already includes three European Cups, three Division 1 titles, three Coupes de France, the Algarve Cup, the Four Nations Cup and a Bronze Medal from the 2016 Olympic Games, among other honours.

At 24 she is already one of this country’s best-ever internationals and is recognized among the sport’s elite central defenders. Her steady presence allows defensive partner and Lyon captain Wendie Renard — who scored in Wednesday’s semifinal against Paris Saint-Germain — to venture forward, and along with Renard and full-backs Lucy Bronze and Sakina Karchaoui is part of a unit that is far and away the best in Europe.

Wolfsburg, however, have managed five goals against Lyon and their vaunted defence over five previous meetings — a feat that may seem small but is impressive when compared with the measly four goals the French side conceded through all of the 2019-20 Division 1 season.

Add Lyon’s recent offensive struggles to the mix and you have a cocktail the defending four-time champions will be stirring cautiously ahead of Sunday.

In fact, for the first time in Buchanan’s Lyon tenure, she and her teammates may not even be the favourites in the Champions League Final.

Shortly after arriving in the Basque region for UEFA’s contained, single-elimination playoffs — improvised to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic — Wolfsburg hammered Scottish champions Glasgow City 9-1, paced to the blowout by four goals from Denmark international Pernille Harder.

With Lyon forward Ada Hegerberg likely sidelined for the Final through injury, Harder is the Champions League’s highest active goal scorer, and she also topped the Bundesliga chart with 27 tallies domestically. In last year’s quarter-final round she briefly knotted the second leg against Lyon with a pair of goals three minutes apart, only for Eugenie Le Sommer to cancel the brace with two of her own and eliminate the German champions yet again.

Lyon have knocked Wolfsburg out of the Champions League in each of the last four years, including the memorable finals of 2016 and 2018, and Sunday’s will be the fourth Final between the two sides since 2013, when Wolfsburg prevailed 1-0 at Stamford Bridge. Needless to say, the frequent meetings have made this one of club football’s standout rivalries. And while it may not be the most virulent, it’s certainly among the most compelling.

“They’re the No. 1 in Europe and we obviously want to put a stop to that,” remarked Wolfsburg captain Alexandra Popp in a Friday interview with UEFA.com.

“They’re always dangerous. It feels like you don’t see some of these players for 90 minutes, then in the 91st minute they’re there and are extremely dangerous.”

Popp, a 2016 Olympic gold medallist with Germany and three-time Champions League winner (two with Wolfsburg and one with Duisburg), doesn’t have to look back very far to remember Lyon’s late heroics of 2018, when Amadine Henry, Le Sommer, Hegerberg and Camille Abily each scored in extra time to beat Wolfsburg in the Kiev Final.

She and her teammates have something to prove at the Anoeta, and with Harder, Ingrid Engen and Ewa Pajor in such good nick they have every reason to be at least quietly confident. Wolfsburg also finished their Bundesliga season in June, so they should be considerably more match-fit than Lyon, whose French schedule concluded pre-lockdown.

“We stopped for five months and we’d missed a lot,” Lyon goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi told UEFA.com.

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“In France, like in Europe, everyone wants to dethrone Lyon. It’s true that it’s a bit annoying to always see the same team on top. It helps us develop, too, because all these teams work and want to go after us.”

Lyon, favouring a patient, possession-oriented style won’t be easily stripped of the ball on Sunday. Wolfsburg will attempt to launch quick, vertical counter-attacks when they get it, although they’ll have to find a way to pass through the opposing defence, where Canada’s Buchanan will be patiently waiting.

She can literally count on one hand the number of times she’s been beaten in the goalmouth this term. If she doesn’t have to add a second, she’ll almost certainly hoist another trophy. For this champion, and for this team of champions, it’s the only acceptable way to finish a season.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter @JerradPeters