Champions League in Barcelona: "Support each other"

Head coach Gabor Gallai on…

…the successful start to the English week.

"We created many chances for ourselves in Jena; that was of course something that we didn't do so well against Leverkusen. We repeatedly used our possession of the ball to launch good moves towards the opposition goal. It was a shame that we didn't manage to take advantage of that to score two or three goals more before half-time. We could have made it a more conclusive result. We showed good ideas, and you could see what we had worked on in training. However, we ultimately made too many simple mistakes and invited our opponent to hit us on the counter-attack. We're very happy that we've started the English week with three points."

…the Champions League clash away to Barcelona.

"We'll be up against probably the best team out there right now on Wednesday. Barcelona play an extremely high number of passes and create many chances per match. Our objective will be to defend everything we can, although that won't be possible in every situation. We want to keep the game open for a long time and also have possession ourselves, even though that'll certainly be difficult, because that's Barcelona's game too. We'll have to work in a focused manner off the ball, because in games like this every positional error is punished. I'm expecting a highly tactical encounter in which we want to trouble Barcelona as much as possible. The key will be to support each other on the pitch. It is certainly a match that will be very interesting for the spectators."

…personnel matters.

"Except for our long-term injury absentees Paulina Krumbiegel and Isabella Hartig, we expect to have all our players on board. Fabienne Dongus and Gia Corley, who missed out on the Jena match with knocks, will be back in contention for Wednesday."

Opposition spotlight:

Barcelona currently top the Liga Iberdrola, the women's top flight in Spain, with nine wins from nine matches – a dominance highlighted by their goal difference with 54 goals scored and only two conceded. The six-time Spanish champions and cup winners, who are coached by Jonatan Giráldez, made it into the quarter-finals of the Champions League in 2016 and 2018, and the semi-finals in 2017 and 2020. Their first appearance in the final of the competition came in 2019, though they were beaten by Olympique Lyon. But Barcelona won the 2020 edition courtesy of a win against Chelsea, which means that they are now the tournament's reigning champions. Playmaker Alexia Putellas was crowned the 2021 European Women's Footballer of the Year, with her team-mates Jenni Hermoso and Lieke Martens also among the nominees. Sandra Paños was recently named the Best Goalkeeper by UEFA. In Fridolina Rolfö and Ingrid Engen, there are two former Wolfsburg players in the Barcelona squad, who play their home games at the Estadi Johan Cruyff (6,000 capacity). The first two matchdays in the Champions League have gone very well for coach Giráldez and his charges, who have beaten Arsenal 4-1 (2-0) and HB Køge 2-0 (0-0).

Match facts and statistics »