Juventus are on schedule to do an Avaldsnes then. To draw Lyon, Barcelona, Lyon in three consecutive seasons. Or may be not. Next year we have reached the heaven called Group stage!
Well, reaching the Group stage is not easy, only four teams are guaranteed to get there. Everybody else has to fight for their lives lol
If there are any "upsets" (based solely on coefficients) in the R32, these are the six pairings I would guess they come from. All of the rest are basically in the bag for the seeded teams. Well, good news is that at least one ITA team has a good shot of advancing! Well, the "fight for their lives" probably won't be *too* much of a fight for the champions from the top leagues. All teams on the League path and the other R1 entrants on the Champions path will certainly have to fight, though. With that in mind, it does bode well for the leagues 4-10 in that it will be very hard for them to *not* have a team in the group stage. Only real way to slip up is if a champion from leagues 7-10 is paired against a champion from 11-14. This will be very beneficial for leagues like NED, ITA, and NOR; SUI and SCO could sneak in too. It just means that there's extra incentive for teams to win their domestic league each season. Which, looping back to Juve, is good news.
Side note: I still want to know what will happen to all the slots if the defending champions already qualifies normally. Extra league path slot for their league?
I think looking at what happens with the men, everybody shifts forward by one. a) Let's say Lyon win both French and WCL, so you get Lyon ( holders + FRA 1), Bayern ( GER 1), Barca ( SPA 1), Chelsea ( ENG 1) straight to group stage from Round 2. DEN 1 moves up to Round 2 from Round 1 and who takes DEN 1 place in the champions path Round 1 ??? b) Chelsea win WCL and WSL, you get Chelsea, Lyon, Bayern, Barca and DEN1 moves up to Round 2 from Round 1 and who takes DEN 1 place in the champions path Round 1 c) Juventus win WCL and Serie A feminile, you get Juve, Lyon, Bayern, Barca at group stage and who takes Juve's place in the champions path ???
Okay, so it's a shift by nation one up the international coefficient ladder, and not a shift by club on up the league in question. One problem with this new format is it does strongly depend on having a multiple-of-four number of teams in R1, which can be thrown off depending on how many leagues enter the competition and who is the title holder. I guess they may just grant the occasional bye?
Yeah. The men competition has a back up as in they get teams who were through to the UEL promoted to the UCL to fill up a place.
A bit unlucky for Göteborg that this round was moved to December as they have several contract running out Dec 1 and risk missing 4 regular starters for these matches. They surely need everyone available to have a chance to beat Man City. For Rosengård the problem seems more to be how to get to Georgia and if they will be compensated if they must charter a plane.
All dates are now set: First legs Wednesday 9 December Lanchkhuti vs Rosengård Minsk vs LSK Kvinner WFC-2 Kharkiv vs BIIK-Kazygurt Pomurje vs Fortuna Hjørring Spartak Subotica vs Wolfsburg Juventus vs Lyon Sparta Praha vs Glasgow City Benfica vs Chelsea Göteborg vs Manchester City PSV Eindhoven vs Barcelona St. Pölten vs Zürich Servette vs Atlético Madrid Thursday 10 December Fiorentina vs Slavia Praha Górnik Łęczna vs Paris Saint-Germain Ajax vs Bayern München Vålerenga vs Brøndby Second legs Tuesday 15 December Lyon vs Juventus Atlético Madrid vs Servette Wednesday 16 December BIIK-Kazygurt vs WFC-2 Kharkiv Slavia Praha vs Fiorentina Paris Saint-Germain vs Górnik Łęczna Manchester City vs Göteborg Barcelona vs PSV Eindhoven Bayern München vs Ajax Brøndby vs Vålerenga Wolfsburg vs Spartak Subotica Rosengård vs Lanchkhuti LSK Kvinner vs Minsk Fortuna Hjørring vs Pomurje Chelsea vs Benfica Glasgow City vs Sparta Praha Thursday 17 December Zürich vs St. Pölten Tournament calendar Round of 16 draw: 16 February Round of 16: 3/4 & 10/11 March Quarter-final & semi-final draw: 12 March Quarter-finals: 23/24 March & 31 March/1 April Semi-finals: 24/25 April & 1/2 May Final: 16 May 2021 (Gamla Ullevi, Gothenburg)
(img Валерий Дед, cc-by) The 1st leg games are today and tomorrow in the Round of 32. Mainly afternoon kickoffs, for some reason. The Juventus Stadium is hosting Juve's home leg against Lyon, who won the teams' pre-season match 3-0 in August. Wednesday 9 December *kickoff times GMT, in bold (from BBC Sport; not sure of any changes/postponements?) Lanchkhuti 10:00am Rosengård Women Minsk Women 11:00am LSK Kvinner Zhytlobud-2 11:00 BIIK Kazygurt Women Pomurje Beltinci 12:00pm Fortuna Hjørring Women Juventus Femminile 14:00 Lyon Féminines Sparta Prague 14:00 Glasgow City Spartak Subotica 14:00 VfL Wolfsburg Ladies Benfica Women 15:00 Chelsea Women Göteborg Women 15:00 Manchester City Women PSV Women 15:30 Barcelona Femenino St. Pölten 16:00 Zürich Women Servette 17:00 Atlético de Madrid Femenino In Switzerland, it's the women's European cup debut for Servette FC Chênois, in the evening match at the Stade de Genève against Atlético Madrid (18:00 CET). Having been the Swiss league leaders of the last abandoned season, Servette are also 5 points clear in 2020/21, with Zurich in 3rd place. https://www.servettiens.ch/servette-fc-chenois-feminin-club-atletico-de-madrid-de-geneve-a-leurope/ Also a first competition appearance by PSV Eindhoven, who are hosting Barça (16:30 CET). https://www.psv.nl/vrouwen/nieuws/artikel/psv-vrouwen-staat-voor-grootste-wedstrijd-in-bestaan.htm
An interesting stat, probably matched by Germany and Sweden maybe: All French clubs who took part in the competition have reached the semi-final at least. #UWCL Bilan des clubs 🇫🇷 en @UWCL @OLfeminin @PSG_Feminines @MontpellierHSC @FCFJuvisy @ToulouseFC Tous ont été au moins une fois dans le dernier carré ! pic.twitter.com/tcJioFt228— footofeminin (@footofeminin) December 8, 2020
Vilde Bøe Risa extended her contract at Göteborg by one day to be available for the Man City matches. And without extra pay
Yes, very good news . Unfortunately they have lost 3 of their 4 centre backs so might be a shaky back 3 for these games. Not just any 3 centre backs either but Sonnett, Berglund and Kuikka
What is the story behind these players leaving now? Sonnett was probably called back by NWSL, but the other two? You would think a CL adventure with a pretty good team like Göteborg would be tempting.
Yes, Sonnett loan expired. Kuikka signed for Portland Thorns and Berglund rumoured to be leaving for Rosengård so I assume she wants to be able to play for them in next round. They also lost their forward Blomqvist to Wolfsburg.
Lanchkhuti 0 - 7 Rosengard (Cankovic 7, Rytting 17, Anvegard 19, Troelsgaard 26, Bennison 28, Viggosdottir 33, Seger 73) Kharkiv 2 - 1 BIIK Kazygurt (Filenko 30, Andrukhiv 59 - Connell 50')
Wnited livestreams Minsk vs LSK Kvinner Juventus vs Lyon Benfica vs Chelsea Göteborg vs Manchester City
Interesting: it's just the first leg and Kazygurt have anyway scored an important away goal, but I wasn't expecting them to lose in Kharkiv. It's true, on the other hand, that the Kazakh team, in the latest years, has always built its success on the home-games, so we're going to see what happens in the return-match. I wasn't aware that Troelsgaard was playing in Rosengård (I assume it's the strong Danish player that I've recently seen play against Italy): looks like the Sweden team has a lot of talent in their ranks. Edit: oh, also, since Norway's league season just ended and Rosenborg qualified for Champions' League, next year I want to see a Rosengård-Rosenborg match, for added confusion!
Buchanann, Majri and Carpenter playing just bad match this afternoon. Hurtig, Cernoia and Hyyrynen instead have really nice game. NIce job by coach Guarino - she identified chinks in the Lyons armor beforehand and directed her team to use them to their own advantage.
Göteborg are one up against Man City after 3 mins. Vilde Bøe Risa! The one-day contract extension is paying off.
At first I read this as meaning that every club had reached the SFs each year, which didn't make sense to me because I remember Bayern crashing out early one year and an early Lyon-PSG meeting another year, but then realized it meant reaching the SFs at any point in their history, which makes more sense. X-D For the record, Pitea qualified last year but didn't even reach the R16, so definitely not Sweden. However, it IS true for Denmark! Largely because one two teams have ever qualified from Denmark.