Arsenal Women – Champions League Round1 Mini Tournament

 

• The Premier League in court: the shape of football to come will be decided by the outcomes.
• 3 matches gone, what does this tell us about the end of the season?

by Andrew Crawshaw

The season proper starts for Arsenal Women with Round 1 one the Champions League on Wednesday and Saturday at Borehamwood.  The arrangement for the Women’s Champions League is very different to the Men’s competition but pretty much equally incomprehensible.

The centrepiece is a 16-team group stage with four groups of four playing each other home and away between October and December.  The top two from each group progress to the final 8 who play home and away matches in a straight knockout to a one-off final. 

Four teams, Barcelona, Lyon, Bayern and Chelsea have already qualified for the group of 16 (Barcelona as Champions and the other three as domestic Champions in the three remaining highest-ranked leagues).  The remaining places are fought for in two paths:-

The Champions Path involves the champions of the remaining qualifying leagues.  The Champions of Italy, Sweden and Czechia enter in round 2, the remaining champions in round 1, or preliminary rounds if necessary..

The League path involves the runners-up of the six highest ranking associations (France, Germany, Spain, England, Italy and Sweden) entering round 2 of the league path.  The third placed teams from those associations and the runners up of the next 10 ranking associations (Czechia, Denmark, Portugal, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Austria, Ukraine, Iceland and Belarus) enter in round 1.

Arsenal finished third last season so we start the competition in Round 1 of the League Path (as we did last year when we won our first game but were knocked out by Paris FC in the group final).   Our group opponents are Rangers (second in Scotland) in the first match, with Atletico Madrid (third in Spain) playing Rosenberg (second in Norway) in the other opening match.  The two winners then play on Saturday to decide who progresses to Round 2 of the competition a home and away tie against the second-placed team from France, Germany, Spain, England, Italy or Sweden.

The opening match is between Atletico Madrid and Rosenberg with a 12:00 kickoff on Wednesday 04 September.  The Arsenal v Rangers game kicks off at 7:30 in the evening.

Looking at the four teams

Rosenborg play in the Norwegian Toppserien League which is a summer league, they are currently third on goal difference.

 

Pos		P	W	D	L	GF	GA	+/-	Pts
1	Vǎlerenga	20	18	0	2	57	13	44	54
2	SK Bann	18	12	1	5	48	19	29	37
3	Rosenborg	19	12	1	6	29	20	9	37

 

Athletic Madrid like England play in a winter league which doesn’t start till this weekend.  Their standings at the end of last season was

 

Pos		P	W	D	L	GF	GA	+/-	Pts
1	FC Barcelona	30	29	1	0	137	10	127	88
2	Real Madrid	30	24	1	5	74	33	41	73
3	Athlético Madrid	30	18	7	5	53	22	31	61

 

Glasgow Rangers are into their 2024 season having played 5 games so far winning them all, scoring 42 without conceding.  Their top scorer Katie Wilkinson so far has 14 goals this season.

 

Pos		P	W	D	L	GF	GA	+/-	Pts
1	Rangers FC	5	5	0	0	43	0	43	15
2	Hibernian	5	4	1	0	20	1	19	13
3	Celtic	5	4	1	0	19	1	18	13

 

 

Arsenal completed our pre-season at the weekend with a 3 – 0 win against Southampton following a trip to Washington DC where we played friendlies against Washington Spirit, winning 2 – 1 with both goals from Russo, and Chelsea where we lost 1 – 0.  From the footage  I’ve seen we are still looking far from our best with new players not yet showing the required empathy with their colleagues.

The match against Rangers certainly isn’t going to be a pushover.  Rangers are well into their season, their last match was a 9 – 0 thrashing of Montrose with top scorer Katie Wilkinson scoring a hat-trick.  Our defenders will have to be alert and our forwards take their chances.

I’ve got tickets for both games and will do post-match reviews.  All in all it looks to be an interesting day, Normally you would expect Athletico and ourselves to progress to the final on Saturday but both Rosenborg and Rangers are fully up to speed with their domestic leagues so probably have an edge in terms of match fitness.  Which teams will progress is actually quite difficult to predict.

Jonas Eidevall has described the mini-tournament as one of the toughest parts of the Champions League before the final as it is the only time we play opponents over 90 minutes until the final.  All of the matches in between are home and away meaning that the better team will normally prevail.  Over 90 minutes there is a lot more jeopardy.

About the only player who I can confidently put in the starting lineup is Goalkeeper Manu Zinsberger.  Definitely out are Lina Hurting and Victtoria Pelova.

Team from:-

Goalkeepers – Manu Zinsberger, Daphne Van Domselaar, Naomi Williams

Defenders – Emily Fox, Lotte Wubben-Moy, Laia Cordina, Leah Williamson, Steph Catley, Katie McCabe, Laura Wienroither, Katie McCabe

Midfielders – Mari0na Caldentey, Kim Little, Frida Maanum, Lia Walti, Kathrine Kohl, Kyrs Cooney-Cross

Forwards – Beth Mead, Rosa Kafaji, Caitlin Ford, Alessia Russo, Sitna Blackstenius, Michelle Agyemang, Vivienne Lia, Freya Godfrey.

COYWG