UWCL PREVIEW | VfL Wolfsburg v FC Barcelona

This Wednesday at 6.45pm CET, FC Barcelona begin the knockout stage of the UEFA Women's Champions League with a quarter final first leg away to Wolfsburg.

Coach Pere Romeu has taken the following 22 players to Germany for a game being played at the 30,000 capacity Volkswagen Arena: Gemma, Paredes, María León, Jana, Paralluelo, Marta, Pina, Graham, Alexia, Patri, Cata Coll, Aitana, Rolfö, Pajor, Vicky, Engen, Brugts, Caño, Schertenleib, C. Serrajordi, Judit and Txell Font.

The prize on offer is a semi-final against the winner out of the all-English contest between Manchester City and Chelsea.

Wolfsburg

Vfl Wolfsburg are one of two clubs that have dominated women's football in Germany in recent years. They and Bayern Munich have claimed the top two spots in the last ten editions of the national championship. Wolfsburg are also consistently among the top performers in the UWCL, which they won in 2013 and 2014, while they have reached the final on four other occasions.

This season, while Barça won their group, Wolfsburg had to settle for second behind Olympique Lyonnais, only edging their way into the knockout stage on goal difference ahead of AS Roma.

They come into this game after a disappointing 3-1 loss to Bayern Munich, which leaves them six points adrift of the Bavarians, now in third place behind Eintracht Frankfurt.

Their top scorer in the league this season is Lineth Beerensteyn of the Netherlands with 11, while their captain, Alexandra Popp, widely regarded as one of the greatest women footballers ever to come out of Germany, leads the way in the UWCL with seven.

Head to head

This is the fifth time that the teams have crossed paths in the competition. The first two meetings didn't end well, with Wolfsburg advancing both times, but things have since swung the other way.

Barça won the semi-final between these teams in 2022, and a year later, when they met in the final in Eindhoven, the Catalans were victorious again, coming from behind to win 3-2 with goals from Patri Guijarro (2) and Fridolina Rolfö. Curiously, one of the Wolfsburg scorers that day was Ewa Pajor, who is of course now plying her trade in the blaugrana jersey.

Barça

Before flying to Germany on Tuesday morning, Claudia Pina was declared fully fit, although Ona Batlle and Ellie Roebuck remain unavailable. Batlle has injured the soleus in her left leg, and is out for two to three weeks, while the England international is having trouble in the tibial area of her right leg and is expected to be sidelined for a similar length of time.

Lastly, tests this Tuesday confirmed that Kika Nazareth has a rupture of the medial collateral ligament in her left ankle. She will undergo surgery this Wednesday, and a new medical update will be provided after the operation.