The 2025-26 UEFA Women’s Champions League final takes place this Saturday. European powerhouses Barcelona and OL Lyonnes will face off in Oslo, Norway. For the first time in the competition’s history, the final could feature three Americans.
Familiar foes
Barcelona and OL Lyonnes (rebranded from Olympique Lyonnais Féminin in 2025) has defined the modern era of the UEFA Women’s Champions League. One of the two clubs has appeared in every UWCL final since 2016. OL Lyonnes has won a record eight titles, while Barcelona is a three-time champion.
The clubs have met in the final three times. Lyon prevailed in 2019 and 2022, before Barcelona won their most recent meeting in 2024. OL Lyonnes had a remarkable run of five consecutive Champions League titles from 2016 to 2020. Barcelona has claimed three of the competition’s last five trophies.
Both clubs similarly dominate their respective domestic competitions. Barcelona has won seven straight Spanish Liga F titles, while OL Lyonnes is on the hunt for a fifth consecutive French Première Ligue crown.
As a result, the Champions League often provides the sternest test either club faces all season. The 2025–26 UWCL introduced a new league-phase format, mirroring changes made to the men’s competition the previous year. Barcelona and OL Lyonnes each finished atop the league phase with identical records (5-1-0) and 16 points apiece.
An all-American midfield
Lindsey Heaps (née Horan), Lily Yohannes, and Korbin Shrader (née Albert) are key cogs in OL Lyonnes’ midfield. If OL Lyonnes wins this weekend, Heaps would become the first American to win two Champions League titles.
All three started in OL Lyonnes’ first leg semifinal against Arsenal, while Yohannes and Heaps also started the triumphant second leg.
Including Heaps, seven American women have previously lifted the UWCL trophy. Most recently, Emily Fox and Jenna Nighswonger (an unused sub) did so when Arsenal upset Barcelona in last season’s final.
Heaps and Catarina Macario became the fourth and fifth American woman to win a Women’s Champions League title when Lyon defeated Barcelona in 2022, during Heaps’ second stint in Europe.
Years earlier, Heaps blazed a trail as the first American woman to bypass college soccer and turn professional in Europe. Growing up, she admired Barcelona’s men’s team and reportedly received an invitation to train with OL Lyonnes after her junior year of high school. Instead, she signed with Paris Saint-Germain months before graduating.
Heaps spent four seasons with PSG before returning to the United States to join the Portland Thorns from 2016 to 2021. Her decorated career with Portland included two NWSL Shields and an NWSL Championship, in which she scored the winning goal. She returned to France on loan with OL Lyonnes in 2022 before making the move permanent.
Heaps has been transparent about the hardships she faced at PSG as a teenager. She reflected on the meaning of returning to France after the ordeal she experienced.
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