It has been 16 seasons since Arsenal received the Women’s Champions League – the one time a British membership have lifted the title. Could this the season when that barren run lastly ends?
The group stages begin this week with Chelsea and Arsenal flying the flag as soon as once more, after Manchester City, Swansea, Rangers, Glasgow and Glentoran all failed to make it by means of qualifying.
But the Women’s Super League sides will want to hit the bottom working, with the hardest of duties coming in their opening matches.
Arsenal face a visit to all-conquering Lyon, the reigning champions, whereas Chelsea journey to final 12 months’s semi-finalists Paris-St Germain.
So can they problem for the title this time round? Let’s take a look at who’s concerned and what to watch for.
Tough teams for WSL groups
Both Chelsea and Arsenal have their work reduce out if they’re to make this the 12 months for Champions League glory.
As Women’s Super League champions, Chelsea certified routinely for the group stages whereas Arsenal progressed by means of the qualifying rounds, narrowly beating Ajax to safe their place in Group C.
Chelsea, who didn’t make it out of their group final season, will once more face a troublesome problem to attain the knockout section, having been drawn alongside Paris St-Germain, Real Madrid and Albanian membership Vllaznia in Group A.
PSG pushed eventual winners Lyon all the best way in the semi-finals in April, whereas Real Madrid have knocked out Manchester City in the qualifying rounds in the previous two seasons.
The Blues, who reached the ultimate in 2021, will even be with out their supervisor Emma Hayes for an unspecified time as she recovers from emergency surgery.
Meanwhile 2007 champions Arsenal, who misplaced in the quarter-finals to Wolfsburg final season, have the unenviable job of dealing with eight-time winners Lyon in Group C, in addition to Serie A winners Juventus – quarter-finalists final time out – and Swiss outfit Zurich.
Although a troublesome ask, if the 2 London golf equipment can placed on a powerful displaying in their respective teams, they could fancy their possibilities of going all the best way.
Who else might contend for title?
It’s troublesome to look previous eight-time winners Lyon, who claimed a thrilling 3-1 victory over favourites Barcelona in Turin in May.
The competitors’s file scorer, Ada Hegerberg, returned from damage to play an important position in the French facet’s run to the title final season and she is going to look to bounce again from her Euros disappointment with Norway – they went out on the group stage – to information her facet to a record-extending ninth title.
Of course, many English followers could have their eyes peeled for their European Championship-winning Lionesses, and two of them – former Manchester City gamers Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh – have given themselves an incredible likelihood of silverware by becoming a member of 2021 champions Barcelona.
However, the Spanish champions, who’ve reached three finals in the previous 4 years, are with out Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, who is probably going to miss the remainder of the season as she recovers from knee surgical procedure.
Bronze and Walsh will go toe-to-toe in Group D with their England team-mate Georgia Stanway, who joined Bayern Munich. The German facet will look to construct on their promising displaying final season after they beat Lyon at house in the group stages and took PSG to extra-time in the quarter-finals.
German heavyweights Wolfsburg – two-time winners who’ve reached at the very least the quarter-finals in all 10 seasons since their debut – have arguably the best route to the knockout stages. They are in Group B with Czech facet Slavia Prague, Austrians St Polten and debutants Roma.
Wolfsburg’s star striker, Alexandra Popp, will hope to proceed her goalscoring exploits from Euro 2022, the place she scored six objectives for Germany in the match and solely missed out on the Golden Boot to England and Arsenal ahead Beth Mead on assists.
Two-time runners-up PSG sailed by means of the group stages final season, scoring 25 objectives with out reply in their six group wins. They have boosted their ranks with the signing of Dutch ahead Lieke Martens from Barcelona over the summer time, though French striker Marie-Antoinette Katoto stays out with a severe knee damage.
New groups
Alongside the stalwarts of Europe’s elite groups, the Champions League additionally welcomes some recent groups to this 12 months’s group stage.
Seven of the 16 groups current this time round weren’t in the group stage final season.
Albanian champions Vllaznia change into the primary membership from their nation to attain the final 16 of any Uefa competitors, males’s or girls’s, since 1989-90, when KF Tirana had been in the lads’s European Cup.
Serie A runners-up Roma have reached the group stage for the primary time ever as they try to be a part of fellow Italian facet Juventus in Europe’s elite.
Slavia Prague are the primary Czech crew to attain the brand new group stage – launched final season in place of a last-16 knockout section – after lacking out to Arsenal in the qualifying rounds final season.
Meanwhile, St Polten made it to the final 16 two seasons in the past, below the previous competitors format, and are competing as Austria’s first group representatives.
Big stages, huge occasions
It is hoped that the file crowds seen on the Euros can proceed to be emulated by staging Champions League video games at golf equipment’ bigger grounds used for the lads’s groups.
Arsenal will play all of their house ties at Emirates Stadium, the place they hosted a crowd of 47,367 on the current north London derby towards Tottenham, a file for a WSL match.
After attracting huge crowds to the Nou Camp final season – drawing in greater than 90,000 spectators for each their quarter-final towards Real Madrid and semi-final towards Wolfsburg – Barcelona will play their house group-stage matches towards Rosengard and Bayern Munich on the 99,354-capacity floor.
