The last of the four Women’s Champions League quarter-final first legs to be played this week sees Wolfsburg travel to face Paris Saint-Germain in the French capital.
Wolfsburg have twice won this competition in the past and have reached three further finals since their most recent triumph in 2014. The German giants also got to last season’s semi-finals and inflicted a 2-0 defeat on Barcelona, even if the tie was already pretty much over on aggregate.
Wolfsburg won arguably the weakest group in the first half of the campaign, but do boast competition top scorer Ewa Pajor, who scored seven times in the group stage.
PSG, twice Champions League runners-up in 2015 and 2017, are now looking to make it through to the semi-finals for the fourth consecutive season. They beat Lyon to the French league title in 2020/21 and are only just behind their domestic rivals again now.
PSG got into the knockouts by following Chelsea out of challenging group that also contained a decent Real Madrid side. But with home and away defeats to Chelsea it wasn’t hugely convincing.
PSG remain without chief goal threat Marie-Antoinette Katoto due to the ACL injury she suffered during Euro 2022, but coach Gerard Precheur has confirmed left-back Sakina Karchaoui is available to start after making her return to action in the Coupe de France at the weekend.
Centre-backs Paulina Dudek and Amanda Ilestedt are missing.
Influential midfielder Lena Oberdorf did not suffer long-term damage to her knee during Friday’s win over Turbine Potsdam but will be sidelined with a sprain for at least the short-term.
Alexandra Popp and the aforementioned Pajor both started on the bench in that game but should be recalled to the lineup for this one.
Both of these clubs are locked in close fought title races in their respective domestic leagues, each dropping only a handful of points all season.
PSG will have been disappointed with their group stage performance given their record in this competition over the last decade.
There are major attacking threats on both sides, with Wolfsburg’s Pajor as mentioned the top scorer in the competition and Kadidiatou Diani stepping up her return in front of goal this season in the absence of teammate Katoto. Wolfsburg have scored in 17 of their last 19 Champions League quarter-final games, so keeping them out could be a real challenge.
Prediction: PSG 2-2 Wolfsburg
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