Ada Hegerberg and Olympique Lyon's Champions League victory: The best has its place again

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Hegerberg with the Champions League trophy

Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP

At the end of March, Ada Hegerberg was in Turin with Olympique Lyon.

She had lost with her team at Juventus back then, that quarter-final first leg in the Champions League took place on a training ground of the Italian club, a dreary evening, hardly 500 people were watching.

Hegerberg also only watched at the time.

The Norwegian world footballer of 2018 had been on the bench for the entire season.

A very unusual picture.

It was said at the time that the 26-year-old was in a small form crisis and had to pause.

But in a Champions League game?

Suddenly there was a doubt in the room: Will Hegerberg, the world star of women's football with the merits off and on the field, be as good as in 2018 before she had to go through several serious injuries and was out for almost two years?

Can Hegerberg recover from a cruciate ligament tear, stress fracture and other injuries?

Many careers end with such an injury history.

Two months after her 90 minutes on the bench, Hegerberg is back in Turin on Saturday.

And this time everything was a bit bigger: It was the seventh minute of added time in the Champions League final, and actually the question had already been answered at that point, Hegerberg had long since dispelled any doubts.

But she didn't want to stop playing.

40,000 fans in the large Juventus stadium watched as the attacker took a cross directly in that minute and thundered the ball into the left goalpost.

A last murmur went through the audience, shortly afterwards the game was over and the FC Barcelona players were finally allowed to fall to the ground.

The Champions League winner is Olympique Lyon for the eighth time and Ada Hegerberg received the trophy for the sixth time.

At 3:1 she was the face of a sensational first half for the French, who were already 3:0 ahead after 33 minutes against the supposedly best team in Europe.

They almost burst with power and Hegerberg is the strongest.

She scored the 2-0 header (her 59th European goal in 60 games) and prepared the 3-1, she created more big chances, didn't dodge a duel, as if her serious injuries had never happened.

She didn't get tired.

Only at the very end, when the game was over, did she fall into the arms of some teammates and coaches.

She lingered there for several moments, as if to say thank you for always believing in her.

She herself had expressed doubts and dampened expectations before her comeback.

"Maybe I'm a completely different player than I used to be," she recently told the New York Times.

Yes, she also said that she was in a positive mood, confident.

She was already one of the best in the quarter-final second leg against Juventus, and in the semi-final against Paris-Saint-Germain she again had two goals.

It paved the way to the final – and there to triumph.

Now she said: “I could not have imagined standing here a year after my injuries.

I've come a long way, I get goose bumps just thinking about it."

Hegerberg still has the strongest appeal on the big football stage.

That was by no means certain.

Not just because of her injuries.

When Hegerberg topped 2018's Female Footballer of the Year, the world of women's football was a different one, much smaller and with an undisputed capital in Lyon.

The club has won the premier class five times in a row, led by Hegerberg.

When she's gone, football develops rapidly

But that world has changed during her absence due to injury.

In England, the clubs are celebrating a multi-million dollar TV contract, and the DAZN streaming service is now broadcasting all Champions League games live.

In the final of this year's premier class, Hegerberg was even an outsider with Lyon.

Opponents Barcelona had already won the competition last year and haven't gotten worse since then.

On the contrary: In addition to the playful class on the pitch with world footballer Alexia Putellas, there was also euphoria in the stands.

Barcelona broke attendance records and looked set to become the new capital of women's football.

Lyon and Hegerberg were able to stop this change of power for the moment.

The fact that it is now much more competitive at the top is also due to a development that Hegerberg triggered himself.

Early in her career, she set herself the goal of becoming the greatest in her sport.

Alone: ​​She also wanted to expand the sport itself.

In 2017 she retired from the Norwegian national team as one of the best players in the world.

At the age of 22, but already with 66 international matches, she was already a big star in Norway.

Her withdrawal was a protest to draw attention to the unequal treatment of footballers in Norway.

It was about payment, more support and better conditions for the footballers in her country.

With their protest, a movement emerged.

Since then, the conditions for women footballers have improved in many countries around the world, especially in Europe, albeit at different speeds and far from with a result that satisfies everyone.

But there is a development, and with all her injuries, Hegerberg was in danger of missing the boat there.

But with the Champions League final, all doubts have been dispelled.

In March, Hegerberg also announced that she would return to Norway.

The European Championships in England will follow for them in the summer, many games are already sold out and new records are waiting.

It will be the perfect stage for Ada Hegerberg.