Showpiece games in women's football are a joy but they hinder Champions League teams

New York Times

24-03-2025

A league game that takes place between Champions League knockout matches is often a tough one to approach. Clubs typically want to prioritise their weekday match in knockout competition and need to balance player rotation with any desire or need to pick up points domestically.
In the women's game, there is an additional pressure. With this weekend's domestic games taking place between the Champions League quarter-finals and also during the men's international break, many leagues use it as an opportunity to schedule 'showpiece' fixtures in bigger stadiums.
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There were plenty of incredible examples of the success of this over the weekend. Newcastle United hosted Sunderland at St James' Park in the Tyne-Wear derby in front of 38,502 people, a Women's Championship record and more than were at the Emirates to watch Arsenal thrash Liverpool 4-0 in the Women's Super League on Saturday (35,628).
In Germany, rather than league games, they hosted the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal, with Hamburger SV selling out their 57,000-seater Volksparkstadion for their match against Werder Bremen. It was a record attendance for a women's club game in Germany and was sold out two weeks before kick-off.
For teams with an eye on Europe, having a huge match plonked in the middle of a two-legged tie is hardly ideal. Nowhere was that more true than at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, where Manchester City and Chelsea played out their third game in a four-match epic.
With City 2-0 up from the first leg of the two sides' Champions League quarter-final, it felt like Chelsea needed to show that they could respond if they were to have a chance at overturning the deficit at Stamford Bridge on Thursday night. The irony, though, was that City were far more reliant on a good result in this fixture than in any of the other three matches they are playing, given their struggles to qualify for the Champions League next season.
Chelsea are no strangers to the scourge of Manchester City away, a fixture they have enjoyed limited success in. Two years ago, Chelsea were preparing to defend a one-goal lead over Sonia Bompastor's Lyon in the Champions League quarter-finals when they headed up north. With her team 2-0 down after 30 minutes, Emma Hayes hauled off some of her side at 36 minutes, effectively throwing the match with the European fixture in mind.
Their first-half performance on Sunday looked like it could lead to a similar situation, although Bompastor, now Chelsea head coach, made six changes from the side that had started on Wednesday night, which reflected where the game stood in Chelsea's priority list.
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However, a rocky first-half start in which Kerolin Nicoli continued her torment of Chelsea's back line — she opened the scoring in 32nd minute — threatened to make Thursday's European match even more ominous. Chelsea's second-half performance, however, which saw them take 23 shots and create seven big chances, changed the mood completely. It might have taken until the 91st minute for Erin Cuthbert to seal a 2-1 win for the west Londoners but it was their best half of football for months, potentially even ever under Bompastor. It will give the Chelsea dressing room the faith they can turn things around on Thursday.
Arsenal will have been similarly heartened by their own performance against Liverpool at the Emirates. Like Chelsea, Renee Slegers's team will have to overturn a two-goal deficit against Real Madrid in order to make the semi-finals. The four goals scored against a Liverpool side who had knocked them out of the FA Cup two weeks ago, on a much better playing surface, will surely help them believe that they can flip the script on Wednesday night.
The issue is that Real Madrid had an even bigger confidence boost of their own. The showpiece fixture in Spain over the weekend was a Clasico at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, the former Olympic stadium where Barcelona's men are playing while the Camp Nou is renovated. Real Madrid had never beaten Barcelona in 18 previous meetings and when Alba Redondo put them 1-0 up at half-time, it was the first time they had ever led at that stage of a Clasico. After Caroline Graham Hansen equalised for Barcelona, Madrid were handed some good fortune by the referee when what appeared to be a perfect legitimate goal from Jana Fernandez was ruled offside. Then Caroline Weir scored then two late goals to give them an historic 3-1 win.
Given Barcelona's substantial three-goal cushion against Wolfsburg in the Champions League, they had less to worry about next week than most, but the mental strain of playing these big games back-to-back does not disappear, particularly given the strength of feeling in this rivalry.
In France, it is a different situation, where the league actively works with French Champions League sides to help their schedule go as smoothly as possible. Lyon, who are 2-0 up over Bayern Munich after their first leg, made nine changes to beat ninth-placed Saint-Etienne 5-0.
It is a stark contrast as to how the rest of Europe approaches fixture scheduling and maybe goes some way to explain Lyon's incredible success at the top of the women's game over the past 15 years.
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The desire to use the men's international break to draw greater attention to women's football is an understandable one from a marketing perspective but the impact it can have on teams' seasons can do more harm than good. There are genuine questions of fairness about altering the schedule in favour of Champions League teams — particularly in England where there are four sides competing for three top positions — but actively making things harder is something that should be moved away from.