The women of Olympique Lyonnais, defending champions but second in their group, and Paris Saint-Germain find Europe and two big offensive armadas, Chelsea (6:45 p.m.) and Wolfsburg (9:00 p.m.), Wednesday in the quarter-finals first leg of the Champions League which promise to be complicated. Even if the two French clubs have avoided FC Barcelona, finalist of three of the last four editions (victory in 2021, defeats in 2019 and 2022), the two double confrontations will not be easy for the leader of D1 and his current runner-up, as long as the players of the English and German clubs impress physically.
For these European clashes, the choice of setting is important: the Lyonnaises will receive at Groupama Stadium and the Parisiennes at the Parc des Princes, even if the two enclosures will certainly be far from full (more than 10,000 people expected at the Parc). “Playing at the Park, it’s going to be something beautiful with the supporters, so we have to have a good match”, comments to AFP Sakina Karchaoui, the left side of PSG.
Large stadiums
Last year, a record was broken: 43,255 spectators attended the Parc des Princes semi-final second leg of the Champions League against OL (1-2). From Camp Nou in Barcelona to the Emirates Stadium in London via Stamford Bridge or the Olympic Stadium in Rome, all the matches in these quarter-finals will take place in large-scale stadiums. In the other two quarters on Tuesday, Bayern will host Arsenal (6:45 p.m.) and AS Roma will host FC Barcelona (9:00 p.m.).
Arriving second in their group behind Arsenal, the Lyonnaises will have to come up against the other Londoners, the Chelsea “Blues” and their offensive armada. With in particular Sam Kerr, Pernille Harder and Fran Kerby, “world-class players”, according to the Danish Signe Bruun, attacker at OL at AFP
The English team, who have fallen twice from PSG in the group stage (1-0 and 3-0), also have a solid defense and conceded only one goal in the group stage, against Real. “I think there are more and more good teams. I think before you could say that Lyon were 100% dominating all the other teams, but in recent years there are more and more teams that can win” the Champions League, Signe Bruun told AFP.
Above all, “physical strength”
To reach the last four, as in the three previous editions (2020, 2021, 2022), the Parisiennes will have to overcome Wolfsburg, a stronghold of German football qualified for its eleventh consecutive quarter-final, a record. On Wednesday, however, the German team will be weakened by the withdrawal of its star, defensive midfielder Lena Oberdorf, who suffered a knee injury this weekend.
Also without its star, striker Marie-Antoinette Katoto, unavailable for several months, PSG will have to do much better in front of goal than Saturday in the semi-finals of the Coupe de France. Les Parisiennes qualified with difficulty against Thonon-Evian-Grand-Genève, weak fourth in D2 (1-0). At the end of the match won thanks to a goal from Kheira Hamraoui, the Parisian coach Gérard Prêcheur also expressed his “doubt” in the face of the performance of certain players, who finished second in their group in the Champions League.
This meeting will certainly awaken the memory of the semi-final of the last Euro, won by Germany’s Alexandra Popp against France’s Kadidiatou Diani, the other star striker of PSG. “We know that the German teams are really a physical force above all. They are also technical and tactical, for me it is one of the best teams in the world,” said Parisian Sakina Karchaoui.