Champions League draw sets up blockbuster group stage – see who City, Chelsea, and Arsenal will face

After qualifying concluded last night, three Barclays Women’s Super League sides are officially through to the group stage of the UEFA Women’s Champions League. This morning’s draw revealed who they will face, and there are some monumental ties in store.

City and Barcelona headline Group D

Manchester City have the toughest possible challenge in front of them. Gareth Taylor’s side, who qualified with an aggregate 8-0 win over Paris FC, will face reigning champions Barcelona in Group D. The Blaugrana won the European crown for the third time this year, having won three of the last four editions and featured in all of the last four finals. Their terrifying squad boasts six of this year’s Ballon d’Or nominees and several of the 2023 Women’s World Cup-winning Spain side. The trophy is seen by most as theirs to lose and City will need an incredible performance to overcome them and top the group. They’ll also need to push past their memories of Barcelona eliminating them from the competition in 2021.

City and Barcelona’s groupmates are Hammarby and St. Pölten. Swedish side Hammarby are making their Champions League debut this season, but impressively overturned a 2-0 aggregate deficit to Benfica in their second qualifying leg to progress. St Pölten are returning to the group stage for the third year in a row, but have never progressed to the last eight.

Bompastor’s Chelsea face Celtic, Twente, and Real Madrid in Group B

Sonia Bompastor’s only real bragging right over her predecessor Emma Hayes is her Champions League pedigree. For all Hayes’ success, European glory was the one thing she couldn’t reach with Chelsea. Bompastor, already a Champions League winner with Lyon, will look to bring the trophy to Kingsmeadow for the first time in her debut season at the helm. The Blues enter straight into the group stages as English champions and have drawn Celtic, Twente, and Real Madrid.

As semifinalists in the last two years, they are surely favourites to top the group – but will be tested. Real Madrid’s women have nowhere near the Champions League pedigree of their male counterparts, having never made it past the quarter finals, but they currently top the league in Spain. That tie will see Melanie Leupolz reunite with her old Chelsea teammates. They’ll also have to contend with World Cup winner Olga Carmona and Linda Caicedo, a Colombian teenager regarded as one of the world’s best young players.

Chelsea will also face Celtic in the only all-British clash of the groups after they became the first Scottish side to reach the UWCL group stage. Completing up the group are Twente, who haven’t featured after qualifiers in the last three years but currently hold the women’s Eredivisie title and recorded an 8-1 aggregate victory in qualifying.

Arsenal face 2023 quarterfinal rematch with Bayern Munich in Group C

Having overturned a 1-0 first leg deficit to BK Häcken in a brilliant win at Meadow Park last night, Arsenal are back in the Champions League group stage after last year’s shock absence. Jonas Eidevall’s side have been drawn into Group C with Juventus, Vålerenga, and Bayern Munich – setting up a rematch of their classic 2023 quarterfinal.

That was another epic comeback from Arsenal – having gone behind in the first leg in Germany, the Gunners produced a 2-0 victory at the Emirates in front of what was then a UK-record crowd for a UWCL fixture. Bayern will undoubtedly have revenge at the back of their minds when they face the Londoners. Last year saw them fail to make it out of the group stage, but before that they had reached at least the quarter-finals for five consecutive years.

Completing the group are Juventus, who pulled off an upset in stopping PSG from reaching the group stage, and Vålerenga, who are through to the last 16 for the first time in their history.

Group A reunites past finalists Lyon and Wolfsburg

Finally, the only group without a British side still features a blockbuster clash as eight-time winners Lyon will face two-time champions VfL Wolfsburg. At least one of these two sides has featured in eight of the last nine finals – and they’ve come up against each other for the trophy directly no fewer than four times, most recently in 2020.

That promises to be a mouthwatering head-to-head, with Lyon appearing in the competition under Joe Montemurro for the first time as they look to take back the title from Barcelona. Wolfsburg have come within touching distance of the trophy so many times, most recently losing to Barcelona in the 2023 final, but have not taken it home in over a decade. These two are the favourites to progress to the last eight.

Galatasaray and Roma complete the group. The Turkish side are making their debut in the competition and thrilled fans with an extra-time winner over three-time quarterfinalists Slavia Praha to progress to the last 16. Roma have reached the groups on each of their three appearances in the competition but, after making it to the quarterfinals on their debut in 2022/23, they failed to progress last year. Both will need the performances of a lifetime to pip Lyon or Wolfsburg to a spot in the quarterfinals.

When does the group stage take place?

The group stage runs from 8th October to 18th December, with each team playing six games to decide who progresses to the quarterfinals. The full fixture list is yet to be confirmed but the schedule runs as follows:

Matchday 1: 8/9 October
Matchday 2: 16/17 October
Matchday 3: 12/13 November
Matchday 4: 20/21 November
Matchday 5: 11/12 December
Matchday 6: 17/18 December

The quarterfinals will then take place in March before the semifinals in April and the final in Lisbon in late May. As ever, you can follow the competition here on FromTheSpot.