BARCELONA, SPAIN – APRIL 22: Alexandra Popp of VfL Wolsburg looks on during the UEFA Women’s … [+]
This week in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, VfL Wolfsburg take on Barcelona in the quarter-finals with the second leg having been moved to accommodate the men’s team.
The match in Barcelona on March 27 was originally scheduled to be played at the club’s main home ground, the 54,637-capacity Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium in Montjuic. However, on February 17, the Catalan club released a statement saying that the game had been moved to the 6,000-capacity Estadi Johan Cruyff, the regular stadium for their European champion women’s team, due to “the overload of matches at the Estadi Olímpic in March.”
The FC Barcelona men’s team, still in the Champions League themselves, were scheduled to play four games at the Estadi Olímpic in March. Following the death of club doctor Carles Miñarro Garcia on March 8, their home match against Osasuna was postponed and moved to March 27, the night the women’s team host Wolfsburg. Earlier in the season, Arsenal also moved a women’s Champions League game to a smaller stadium to accommodate their men’s team.
The last time VfL Wolfsburg visited Barcelona in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, the match was played at Camp Nou, which is currently under renovation. The match attracted a crowd of 91,648, a world record for a women’s club game. Former German national team captain Alex Popp played in that game and told me she was surprised that FC Barcelona have, on this occasion, moved their game to a stadium with a fraction of the capacity.
“I wouldn’t say this is disrespectful or anything like that,” she said. “I was indeed a bit surprised when I heard that because in recent times it has been quite normal in the Champions League for them to play their games in the big stadium. Barcelona know what to expect against us. We have won against them before and even in the 2023 final, we were very close to winning it.”
Wolfsburg will stage their home game on Wednesday at the Volkswagen Arena, the club’s main stadium. However, they are the only one of the four quarter-finalists playing this week who will do this. FC Bayern, Real Madrid and Manchester City have all elected to play their first leg tie at stadiums with four-figure capacities.
This season, average attendances in the UEFA Women’s Champions League are half the average for last season. Two years ago, all eight of the quarter-final ties were played at the club’s main stadium with over 200,000 fans going through the turnstiles and an average gate of over 25,000 for the eight games.
When asked about the fact that fellow German side FC Bayern, have also elected to play their quarter-final home leg at the 2,500-capacity FC Bayern Campus rather than the 75,024-capacity Allianz Arena, Popp said “this is a very good question and it’s not the first time that Bayern did not go to their big stadium, the Allianz Arena. I don’t know why they did that, it’s not really the topic for me to talk about.”
“It is important for us here at Wolfsburg to play these sort of games in the main stadium. It’s always something very special for us. It might not be ideal for women’s football that they are not playing that game in the big stadium but I don’t see it as a big problem either.”
For Wolfsburg, who lost the 2023 final to FC Barcelona after leading 2-0 at half time, it will be an opportunity to be reaquainted with old friends. Four of the former players – Caroline Graham Hansen, Ingrid Engen, Fridolina Rolfö and Ewa Pajor – could line up for FC Barcelona this week.
Along with Popp, Pajor scored for Wolfsburg against Barcelona in that final. The Polish striker was VfL Wolfsburg’s leading goalscorer last season with 18 league goals and is now fulfilling the same role at Barcelona having scored an incredible 33 times from 33 games in all competitions.
EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDS – JUNE 03: Ewa Pajor of VfL Wolfsburg celebrates with teammate Alexandra Popp … [+]
Pajor spent nine seasons playing alongside Popp at Wolfsburg. The German said “when she came here as a young girl. I saw her progress here and it was great to see how she developed into a top-class player. She helped us win a few trophies and get us into the Champions League final. She did very well for the club.”
“She has always been fairly quiet, even a little shy. but she has developed in that respect as well. It’s really nice to see how she has come on to join one of the top clubs where she is playing and scoring one goal after another.”
Earlier in the season, Popp became only the second woman to make 100 appearances in the UEFA Women’s Champions League after Wendie Renard of Lyon. She is one goal shy of becoming just the tenth woman to score 40 goals in the competition and is also the leading maker of assists (31) in the history of the women’s Champions League. This season she has already made seven goal contributions – with four goals and three assists.
She told me “the hunger is definitely there to score but at the same time it has never been super-important for me to score the most goals. The important thing is that we score goals and we win games. To be fair, having a really nice assist creates as good a feeling as scoring a goal. But, of course, I do love scoring goals, especially when I play up front.”
The first leg of the UEFA Women’s Champions League quarter-final on Wednesday between VfL Wolfsburg and FC Barcelona will be streamed exclusively live on the DAZN Platform.
