Women's Champions League quarterfinals kick off with Madrid-Barcelona and an all-London derby
MADRID (AP) — The quarterfinals of the Women's Champions League kick off this week featuring the Real Madrid-Barcelona Spanish rivalry and the all-London encounter between defending champion Arsenal and Chelsea. The last-eight will also include the latest chapter in the historic rivalry between Lyon and Wolfsburg, two of the powerhouses in women's soccer. Manchester United, making its quarterfinal debut, will take on Bayern Munich.
Barcelona, Lyon, Chelsea and Bayern Munich earned an automatic spot in the quarterfinals by finishing in the top-four in the new league phase. The other four teams advanced through the playoffs featuring the teams that finished fifth to 12th. The winner between Madrid and Barcelona will face either Man United or Bayern Munich, while the other semifinal will feature either Arsenal or Chelsea against Wolfsburg or Lyon.
The first legs of the semifinals will be in April and the return matches will be in May. The final will be in Oslo on May 23. Spanish clasico Three-time champion Barcelona, seeking a record sixth straight final, will take on Madrid on Wednesday in a clasico that has historically tilted Barcelona's way in women's soccer.
The Catalan club, the league-phase winner, is aiming to reach the Champions League semifinal for the eighth consecutive time, while Madrid has never made it to the top four in the European club competition. “I have so many good memories from the Women’s Champions League and those memories give you so much motivation to try to make it happen again, because it’s like an addiction,” Barcelona forward Caroline Graham Hansen told UEFA. “You just want that feeling to happen as often as possible, and you have one chance every year to win that trophy.
Like every player in Europe playing for big teams, it’s what you want to achieve at the end of the season. ” The Spanish rivals met in the 2021-22 quarterfinals, with Barcelona advancing 8-3 on aggregate. The second leg was played in front of a then world record crowd of 91,553 at Barcelona's Camp Nou Stadium.
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