UEFA Women's Champions League Preview: Bayern travel to European powerhouse, Wolfsburg entertain PSG

Frauen-Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich and VfL Wolfsburg will start their European campaign with tricky fixtures in the new format of the Champions League. Following last season’s update to the previous group stage of the men’s competition, the League phase structure will now enter the scene in women’s football.

For the first time, there will be 18 participants with all of them ranked in a single table after six rounds of games. The clash of Juventus and Benfica will kickstart the new chapter before eight more matches this midweek. We’ll preview the fixtures of the two Frauen-Bundesliga representatives.

Estadi Johan Cruyff will be the venue for one of the standout fixtures of matchday 1. Bayern won the domestic double last season, and they started the new campaign with a similar wavelength. After the SuperCup triumph, Bayern kept a clean sheet in each of their first five league games.

The goalless draw at home with lowly Carl Zeiss Jena is the only fixture José Barcala didn’t win in his first seven outings. Meanwhile, despite their financial issues, Barcelona continued to dominate Liga F. They won each of their first six league encounters by scoring five goals per game on average.

Bayern Frauen enjoyed a memorable night when the two teams last met. They beat the European giants 3-1 in the group stage in front of the then-record crowd at Allianz Arena. However, Barcelona prevailed with a 2-0 aggregate score in their only knockout stage tie in the semi-final clash back in the 2018-19 season.

Lena Oberdorf, who will be back after missing the win over Bremen with a cold, is finally enjoying her football following a long-standing injury. Unfortunately, Sarah Zadrazil now faces a similar challenge of recovering from a cruciate ligament injury.

Goal-scoring center-back Vanessa Gilles and Jovana Damnjanović will also miss Tuesday’s game in Barcelona. Last season’s defeated finalists only used the captain Irene Paredes, midfield maestro Patricia Guijarro, and three-time Ballon d’Or winner Aitana Bonmatí off the bench in Saturday’s 4-0 win over Eibar.