UEFA have unveiled who will play who, Katie Mishner reacts through with her fan googles on…
It is that time of year again when the shops have prematurely decked their aisles with promotional deals on anything green or red and any given city centre has a seasonal market. But the great early Christmas event of them all? The UEFA Women’s Champions League draw, of course!
UEFA treated the football world today by deciding the quarter final fixtures and the prospective semi-final set up all in one day. It has all panned out very nicely with the anitcipation for some huge fixtures.
For me, the draw that exudes excitement is Wolfsburg v Lyon. Their last meeting back in march was in the grand final of the same competition, Lyon won that one on penalties so this is a bit of a grudge match. Not to mention that these are two figure heads in European, if not, world women’s football so the idea that one of them will exit the tournament at the quarters adds a little bit more zest to an already thrilling fixture.
Wolfsburg and Lyon are also the only two previous winners left in the competition. If their current run of form in the competition, the only teams that can . In the previous rounds Lyon thumped newbies Zurich 17-0 on aggregate while Wolfsburg breezed past Eskilstuna United on a comfortable 8-1 over two games.
Not to mention that the winner of this quarter final tie will potentially go onto play the only English team left in the tournament, Manchester City Women.
As an English fan of football, I am immediately drawn to wanting Manchester City to succeed in their debut run in UWCL. Fortunately, they were drawn with one of the more favourable sides – Fortuna Hjørring. That means that they will be playing back in Denmark come March 22 or 23, not an unfamilar land having pipped Brøndby to the quarter finals in the last of 16.
I am excited to see how the fixture unfolds for a number of reasons.
Should they go on and beat Fortuna I have no doubt that will have met their match in their invicible season when it comes to playing Wolfsburg or Lyon. But the impact of having an English team in the semi-finals? Invaluable. The domestic scene reaped the benefits when Arsenal won the treble back in 2006/7. Now that attendance and general interest is on the rise and Man City hold the all time record for supporters attending a game; it could be a pivotal moment for our domestic league as it changes to a winter schedule.
The task in hand will come with certain pressures as it is in the next phase of the UWCL but statistically speaking there is not that much that separates Fortuna from Brøndby. They almost share out the Elitedivisionen titles, though Brøndby have more historically. It seems like we are all looking at this fixture as something they could certainly achieve, which adds to the buzz.
On the other side of the draw it is also very interesting. Bayern Munich in their first time at this stage were paired with PSG, while Barcelona will go to Rosengård in the first leg. As these four teams, once whittled down to two, could face each other in the semis it means that we could be on course to see an all French or German final.
All in all, there are some juicy fixtures. I am already looking at how I can get myself to Wolfsburg or Lyon to even witness that clash and see the likes of Ada Hegerberg and Lara Dickenmann go head to head in the creme de la creme of tournaments.
