Women’s Champions League quarter-finals: can anybody stop Barcelona? | OneFootball

After a three-month wait for restless fans since the conclusion of the group stage, Europe’s top clubs finally return to continental action this week as the Women’s Champions League quarter-finals get under way. The main question on everybody’s mind between now and the final in Lisbon on 24 May is: can anybody stop Barcelona?

The defending champions are bidding to reach a fifth consecutive final and win the title for the third year in a row, but they did not complete the group stage with a perfect record – only Chelsea and Lyon did – and provided a rare glimpse of their mortality with an away defeat against Manchester City in October.

With that in mind, and in view of the relative strength of the teams in the last eight, the battle to reach Estádio José Alvalade has a wide-open feel to it, especially with both Chelsea and Lyon currently unbeaten in their domestic leagues. Throw into that mix the renewal of old rivalries, as Wolfsburg meet Barcelona in a repeat of the 2023 final, plus added elements for unpredictability after the appointment of Nick Cushing as Manchester City’s interim head coach, and it all adds to the recipe for four tantalisingly poised quarter-final ties.

England is the first nation to have three clubs playing in the quarter‑finals of this competition in the same season, and at least one is guaranteed to progress, as Manchester City and Chelsea go head-to-head for Acts II and IV of their ongoing four-part drama. On Saturday they played the first of their four consecutive meetings across three competitions, when Chelsea were 2-1 winners to lift the English Women’s League Cup, and they also have a league meeting at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday sandwiched in between these two legs of their European quarter-final.

Cushing, who led City to the semi-finals in back‑to‑back campaigns in 2016-17 and 2017‑18 in his previous spell in charge, has said his side’s display in their defeat on Saturday gave him belief that they can beat Sonia Bompastor’s team, who are yet to lose a game under her management. Both teams remain without long-term injury absentees, but City had a scare when their top scorer Khadija Shaw was substituted “feeling her hamstring”, while Chelsea’s big-money January signings, Naomi Girma and Keira Walsh, missed the game and are both doubts.

Meanwhile, despite not having played a match since 2023 because of her anterior cruciate ligament injury, Sam Kerr was added to Chelsea’s Champions League squad for the knockout rounds, although it would be a surprise if she was deemed ready to feature.

Arsenal, who are in the opposite half of the draw, will be hoping to join one of their WSL rivals in the semi-finals, but they do not face an easy task as they face a Real Madrid side just seven points behind Barcelona at the top of the Spanish league. Real could field dangerous attacking-midfield weapons in the form of Linda Caicedo, Athenea del Castillo and the Scotland midfielder Caroline Weir, who played for Arsenal more than a decade ago as a teenager.

Arsenal won the competition in 2007 while Real are yet to reach the semi-finals and the Madrid head coach, Alberto Toril, said on Monday: “I expect a close tie between two teams that are doing really well. My players will need to get to grips with the key moments of each leg. We have to take the game to where it suits us, starting with possession, being well positioned so as to not afford them too much space, stretching the game out and always being in it.”

The winner of that Arsenal-Real tie will face either Bayern Munich or the record eight-time champions Lyon in the next round. Alexander Straus, Bayern’s head coach, hopes his team’s defensive record – conceding just 12 goals in 17 Frauen Bundesliga games this season – can get them over the line. “We have the best defensive record in the Bundesliga,” he said. “It is not going to be easy, they have very good individual players, [but] we will try to defend against them the best way we can and do what we believe will work.”

The top scorers in the competition so far this season, though, are Barcelona, who scored 26 goals in their six group-stage games and have recorded an ominous 93 goals in their domestic league, 17 of which have been scored by the former Wolfsburg forward Ewa Pajor since her switch between the two clubs last summer.

Pajor faces her former club on Wednesday and the German side – two-time Champions League winners – play at home in the first leg of the tie, with the winners meeting either Manchester City or Chelsea in the semi-finals.

As the competition prepares for a change in format to an 18-team league phase next season, which will mean more regular meetings between many of these leading teams earlier in the competition, whatever happens over the next 10 days, these quarter-finals should be truly special.

Header image: [Composite: Guardian Picture Desk]