The Blues, trailing 1-0 from the first leg at Stamford Bridge last weekend, put in a fine display at the Camp Nou but couldn’t overturn the aggregate score after the second leg ended in a 1-1 draw in Spain.

Guro Reiten netted for Chelsea to cancel out Caroline Graham Hansen’s opener for Barca and despite taking the game to the Catalans and creating a number of decent opportunities, we couldn’t find an elusive second to take the tie into extra-time.

Hayes, evidently gutted with the overall result, outlined her pride in her players – and the performance shown – despite the loss when reflecting on the game to us post-match.

‘I can’t ask anymore of our players,’ Emma stated shortly after the final whistle.

‘I said to them at the end that they should all be proud to be Chelsea, because the better team lost tonight.

‘Coming into the tie, with 72,000 fans here we knew it wouldn’t be easy but by not conceding early, we gave ourselves a chance to build. We grew into the game, we got more aggressive and we created some good chances.

‘It wasn’t quite enough and I’m stood here now just absolutely gutted to be totally honest.’

Hayes believes her players can learn from this experience and come back stronger, with the long-term aim remaining the same – eyeing up European success.

‘It’s really hard to take,’ our head coach added. ‘It’s never easy when you lose but I look at every player in that dressing room, and they’ve given everything that we’ve asked of them.

‘I want more in terms of the result but I can’t ask for more in terms of effort and heart. The girls gave everything and executed everything we asked for in terms of a game plan.

‘There’s plenty of learnings we can take, especially from the first leg, but there’s also so many things to take heart from.

‘It’s really gutting and we have to deal with the disappointment, learn from it and grow.’