UWCL talking points: Who can stop Barça, Lyon? What went wrong for Real Madrid?
Matchday four of the 2023-24 Women’s Champions League group stage is over and things are really starting to take shape.
Real Madrid are out already after picking up just one point in Group D as they lost 1-0 to Paris FC, while Swedish surprise package BK Häcken were handed their first defeat, 3-1 to Chelsea, and drop into second place behind the WSL champions.
It’s still anyone’s guess who goes through in Group C as Paris Saint-Germain stunned Roma 3-1 and Ajax Amsterdam went top with a fine 1-0 win over Bayern Munich.
Elsewhere, Barcelona sealed progress from Group A with a 7-0 win over Rosengard, and Benfica drew 1-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt.
Eight-time winners Lyon also went through in Group B after a 2-2 draw in Norway against SK Brann, while Slavia Prague match against St. Pölten was postponed.
We asked our writers Sophie Lawson, Sam Marsden and Julien Laurens to answer some of our burning questions.
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1. After losing their first two games and winning the next two, will PSG and Paris FC make it through now?
Julien Laurens: I can tell you right now: both my Paris clubs will make it to the knockout phase! PSG had a slow start to the season and of this European campaign but, as we saw in Rome on Wednesday, they are growing in confidence and in stature. To have beaten Roma twice and Paris FC in the league in the last week is really impressive. You have the goals of Marie-Antoinette Katoto and the pace of Tabita Chawinga and Sandy Baltimore up front. You have the control of Grace Geyoro and the work rate of Jackie Groenen in midfield and defensively things are getting better too. You also have options off the bench in Lieke Martens and Korbin Albert. If they beat Ajax at Parc des Princes on Jan. 24, they will have made a massive step towards qualifying.
For Paris FC, the fairytale continues. After beating European powerhouses Arsenal and Wolfsburg to qualify for the group stage, they have now got six points against Real Madrid and have given themselves a chance to go through. They play beautiful, confident football that is all about players’ movement and ball movement. Will it be enough? They can definitely get something away at Häcken in Matchday 5 and then it would all be down to the last game against Chelsea at home, at the Charlety Stadium, in a great atmosphere. The players, the manager Sandrine Soubeyrand, the club and the fans believe they will do it. They have defied all the odds so far so there is no reason to not believe in them.
Sophie Lawson: While the respective tasks for the two Paris teams are a little different, both were buoyed by their first wins last week and used that confidence in their games on Wednesday. Group C (which PSG are in) is still the chaos group, with everyone still able to go through, so PSG will effectively be playing two six-pointers next month against Ajax and then Bayern Munich. With each game, PSG’s star striker Katoto gets a little closer to her pre-ACL form and that is a sizeable boost. The team should also be high on confidence after such a dominant performance in Rome, but it is the chaos group for a reason.
Paris FC have a slightly different proposition in Group D, with almost everything riding on their trip to Gothenburg in the first of the two games at the end of January. Whereas PSG sprung to second in their group with their pair of wins, Paris are third behind Häcken in theirs, and have the tough task of squaring off against Chelsea in their last game. A loss to Häcken would automatically eliminate PFC, heaping more pressure on the Parisians. The first job for Sandrine Soubeyrand’s team is playing to their strengths: something they struggled with at the start of the group stage.
Sam Marsden: It’s been quite the turnaround for the two Paris teams, but I think only one will make it through: PSG. They look to be finding form now. Back-to-back wins over Roma sandwiched an away win at Paris FC in the league, with Katoto scoring in all three games. It’s no coincidence PSG are improving as she shows signs of finding her best form after a long-term injury. They can beat Ajax and Bayern in their final two games.
The task looks a little harder for Paris FC, who will likely need to beat both Häcken and Chelsea to get through — unless already eliminated Real Madrid give them a hand. A loss at Häcken in their next game, in fact, coupled with a Chelsea win over Madrid, would see them knocked out. They have shown they are capable of winning those games, but winning them both feels a big ask.
2. Can anyone stop Barcelona and Lyon this year? If so, which team might they want to avoid in the knockouts?
Marsden: I don’t think anyone can beat Barça over two legs, with the possible exception of Lyon. Maybe teams would have a better chance in a one-off match. They have their injury problems — Mapi León, Irene Paredes, Fridolina Rolfö and Alexia Putellas are among their current casualties. Yet still they swatted aside Rosengard 7-0, wracking up 40 shots as coach Jonatan Giraldez, who this week announced he will leave when his contract expires next summer, made it 100 wins from 107 games as coach.
Lyon showed some weaknesses against Brann and may represent a slightly easier draw than Barça at this stage for a side like Chelsea, who knocked the French side out last season. Elsewhere, Häcken deserve some respect and whoever comes through Group C — two from Ajax, PSG and Bayern? — will provide stern opposition, but they don’t look capable of causing an upset at the moment.
Laurens: Barcelona and Lyon are the outstanding favourites to win the Champions League this season. We knew that at the start and it is even more true right now. Forget Lyon’s draw at Brann; Lindsay Horan’s red card changed the dynamic of that game and the French champions conceded a late equaliser. But they have looked very good all through this first half of the season, domestically and in Europe. Barcelona have done the same, probably been even better, actually.
However, you can never take anything for granted in football. So both OL and Barça are looking at the opposition. Chelsea? They would not want to play them in the quarterfinals because of Sam Kerr, their depth of squad and their experience too. PSG? Lyon know too well that the Parisians can be very competitive. Ajax? They can be tough to play against, like Häcken, but not much more than that. So it’s really PSG and Chelsea that I think both Lyon and Barcelona would want to avoid in the knockouts.
Lawson: No one other than Barcelona has been 100% convincing so far. Most teams have had their moments in one or two games — even Lyon wobbled last night against Brann. The jeopardy of a two-legged knockout forces everyone to be at their best for four halves of football, which, given what we’ve seen so far this group stage, won’t be an easy ask for anyone.
Chelsea didn’t get off to the best start this season but have the know-how and ability to troubleshoot between games, so are usually a team most will want to avoid, whereas the bigger stage of the quarters may prove to be too much for the likes of Benfica or Brann. Otherwise, whoever makes it out of Group C group will probably feel pretty invincible and should have learned enough from the mistakes they’ve made already this season to put up a more convincing fight.
3. Real Madrid are out already. What went wrong there?
Lawson: At this stage last year, after their loss to Chelsea in London, Madrid boss Alberto Toril spoke of being happy with how his team played even though they offered up very little. He highlighted how young the team is, having only been around as “Real Madrid” for two years at that point. Now the team is another year older, and has had another two transfer windows to strengthen, yet they don’t look to be progressing under the coach anymore, having had an immediate bounce when Toril took over from David Aznar in 2021.
The loss of Caroline Weir to an ACL injury earlier in the season has really exposed how much work the Scotland midfielder was doing and, even though her teammates are trying to pick up the slack, it’s simply not coming together. Having been given a sizeable slice of luck against Chelsea in their first game, there was no urgency to find another gear in their next matches and Madrid were often flat and short on ideas against both Häcken and Paris FC. On paper, Las Blancas have a better, deeper squad that both of those teams, but the football consistently disappoints and there is a justifiable sense of humiliation as the first team eliminated this season given their stature in European competition on the men’s side.
The Liga F title is all but already gone with Real Madrid nine points adrift after 12 games — and leaders Barcelona, unlikely to squander many points over the course of the season — but Las Blancas are tied for points with both Levante and Madrid CFF and could yet slide out of a qualification berth come the end of the season. Whilst Real Madrid were expected to progress from this group stage, there were plenty of warning signs along the way: this isn’t a team that’s been unlucky, it’s a team that hasn’t played well.
Marsden: A combination of factors. Madrid will lament a difficult group and the loss of star player Weir to injury, but the truth is they have hit a bit of a wall in recent months. After making huge strides forward under coach Toril upon his appointment in 2021, things have stagnated. Poor results in Europe have been coupled with defeats domestically to Barça, Levante and Sevilla. They have the squad to do much better. It may be time for a change.
Laurens: I won’t lie, I didn’t see this one coming. This Real Madrid is inexperienced, for sure, but to already be out, after just four matches, is bad. Really bad. Especially in a group with Paris FC, Chelsea and Häcken. Toril has to be under pressure now. This team has talent, maybe even the best young talent in the world right now in Linda Caicedo. It has World Cup winners with Spain, plus semifinalists and quarterfinalists from Australia and France, so it is not acceptable to have been so bad in this group stage.
They were unlucky at times, of course, like the penalty missed by Olga Carmona against Paris FC on Wednesday. But they also rode their luck, like against Chelsea where they should not have gotten a point. But collectively it has not been good enough. There is not enough progress from this team. The big stars, like Olga, Caicedo or Signe Bruun have not done enough to carry this team in Europe like they should have done. They had a squad to go through but instead they will watch the rest of the competition on television because there were not up to the task.
