MADRID (AP) — The quarterfinals of the Women’s Champions League this week feature the Real Madrid-Barcelona rivalry and the London derby between defending champion Arsenal and Chelsea.
An old competition between Lyon and Wolfsburg is rekindled, and Manchester United makes its quarterfinal debut against Bayern Munich.
Barcelona, Lyon, Chelsea and Bayern earned automatic spots by finishing in the top four in the new league phase. The other four advanced through the playoffs.
The Madrid-Barcelona winner will face Man United or Bayern, and the other semifinal will pit Arsenal or Chelsea against Wolfsburg or Lyon.
The first legs of the semifinals will be in April and the return matches will be in May. The final will be in Oslo on May 23.
Clasico
Three-time champion Barcelona, aiming for at least a sixth straight final, takes on Madrid on Wednesday in a women’s clasico that has historically tilted Barcelona’s way.
Barcelona was the league-phase winner. Madrid has never made it to the semifinals.
“I have so many good memories from the Women’s Champions League and those memories give you so much motivation to try to make it happen again, because it’s like an addiction,” Barcelona forward Caroline Graham Hansen told UEFA. “You just want that feeling to happen as often as possible, and you have one chance every year to win that trophy.”
When the Spanish rivals met in the 2022 quarterfinals, they drew a then-world record crowd of 91,553 at Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium. The second leg this season will be the first women’s game at the newly revamped Camp Nou.
Madrid beat Barcelona for the first time in 2025. This year it lost to Barcelona 4-0 in the Spanish league, 2-0 in the Spanish Super Cup and 4-0 in the Copa de la Reina. They meet again in the Spanish league in Madrid on the weekend between the two quarterfinal legs in the Champions League.
Madrid, playing in its fifth European campaign, was seventh in the league phase.
London derby
The Arsenal-Chelsea matchup on Tuesday at Arsenal Stadium will mark the first time in Women’s Champions League history that teams from the same city face off.
“Only one English team is going to go through from that quarterfinal but that’s a challenge we can hopefully step up to,” Arsenal forward Beth Mead told UEFA.
Chelsea was third in the league phase, finishing joint top with Barcelona in goals scored (20) and fewest conceded (3).
Arsenal was fifth in the league phase and got through the playoffs with a comfortable 7-1 aggregate win over Leuven.
Old rivalry
The first leg between Wolfsburg and visiting Lyon on Tuesday will be their 12th meeting in the Women’s Champions League, tying the most played fixture between Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain. The record will be broken outright in the return leg in France.
Wolfsburg won the first meeting, the 2013 final in London, but Lyon has had the best of the rivalry since then. It won three finals against the German club in 2016, 2018 and 2020.
Eight-time champion Lyon finished second in the league phase, while two-time champion Wolfsburg was ninth and got past Juventus in the playoffs.
United’s debut
Man United is at home against Bayern on Wednesday in their first matchup in a UEFA women’s competition.
Lea Schüller joined United in January after scoring more than 100 goals in 5 1/2 years with Bayern. United’s Julia Zigiotti Olme and Fridolina Rolfö were also former Bayern players.
Bayern was fourth in the league phase and United sixth.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Tales Azzoni, The Associated Press
