The Blues went 1-0 down within the opening minute and Barcelona doubled their lead from the penalty spot on 14 minutes.

By half-time, our Spanish opponents were 4-0 up but Chelsea emerged from the break to produce a battling display and speaking at full time, vice-captain Bright said the Blues can take plenty of positives from our second-half performance.

She said: ‘Against these opponents, in these finals, you can’t have the start that we had. You can’t concede the early goals. We were unfortunate with the first one, with the deflection and the own-goal.

‘We needed to start the game like we do normally. I don’t think we presented ourselves as Chelsea in the first half and as soon as you give yourself that mountain to climb, it’s virtually impossible against a side like Barcelona.

‘We are disappointed to concede four goals and to give them that early start but there are lots to take from the second half.

‘We showed our true character, there are positives and it’s a good learning curve. It’s our first final and I’m still proud of what we’ve achieved.’

Chelsea have produced some outstanding performances throughout our Champions League campaign, including two victories over finalists Wolfsburg and the Blues turned around a first-leg deficit against Bayern Munich to reach the final. Bright has vowed to come back stronger from Sunday’s defeat to Barcelona.

She added: ‘We’ve had a tremendous season. The journey to get to this final - beating Wolfsburg will probably be the top of it for me because they’ve beaten us for so many years, it’s always pushed us back in the Champions League and they’ve always knocked us out. Beating Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich, we’ve had tough run.

‘It shows we are close, there’s work to be done to get to Barcelona’s level but I don’t think we are too far off.

‘We have to make sure we do better when we come back next time, because we will be back. It’s a setback and from a setback, comes a bigger step forward and that’s what we’ll do.’