Emma Hayes 'could leave Chelsea' if club win Women's Champions League | OneFootball

Chelsea will continue their campaign for a first Women’s Champions League title this evening with a quarter-final clash against eight-time winners Lyon.

The Blues topped a tough group comprising PSG, Real Madrid and Vllaznia earlier this season, but drew the defending champions in the knockout stages.

The two sides have played once before in the Women’s Champions League, with Lyon triumphing 3-2 on aggregate to book a place in the final against Barcelona in 2019.

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Chelsea boss Emma Hayes will be hoping to enact revenge for this defeat, particularly because she is yet to win the Women’s Champions League. She has earned 13 titles with the club in total, but European glory has evaded her so far.

If Hayes does win the Champions League this season, she could well step back from the club, journalist Rob Pratley told GiveMeSport Women.

Why could Emma Hayes leave Chelsea after Women’s Champions League success?

Hayes is considered one of the greatest managers in women’s football, but a Champions League title has been out of her grasp. The closest she has come is as part of the backroom staff at Arsenal when the Gunners won the tournament in 2007.

“I do think if Chelsea do win the Champions League this year, I don't necessarily think they will, but if they do, I think Emma Hayes will leave the club,” Pratley said.

“I think she will look at it and she will say, ‘I've built this club up from being very much a mid-table side that didn't really achieve anything, to consistently winning trophies, winning doubles, winning trebles.

“‘I've now won absolutely everything here, so now is the time for someone else to take the baton.’

“It would be the perfect ending in many ways, although I know a lot of Chelsea fans wouldn’t want to hear that.

“When you win that competition, it is very, very tough to defend it. Lyon and Barcelona will attest to that. It could be the right way to bow out.”

Key battle between Lauren James and Selma Bacha

Both Chelsea and Lyon boast star-studded squads, with Sam Kerr, Wendie Renard, Millie Bright and Delphine Cascarino among the high-profile players involved in tonight’s clash at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais.

Pratley expects the key battle to take place between Lauren James and Selma Bacha, who he branded "pound for pound, the best player in the world in her position by a long way."

The second leg of the quarter-final encounter is set to be held at Stamford Bridge.