Best of Three UWCL: Are Bayern Munich any good?
Plus Chelsea enter their control era and how early UWCL surprises reflect on the qualification system
Throughout the Champions League, I’m going to have my second piece of the week for paid subscribers be a version of Best of Three based on that game week. The Champions League is by far and away the best competition in the women’s game and I think it’s a crying shame that it gets as little coverage as it does. That is likely to be further exacerbated this season in England by the fact that Chelsea are the only English team playing in it. So this is my small effort to help shine some light on it.
The first matchday of the Champions League group stage kicked off with some big wins, as Barcelona beat Benfica 5-0 and Lyon beat Slavia Praha 9-0. Both groups that these teams are in are much more interesting in terms of who will come second, with Barcelona and Lyon being obvious favourites to top the group. To that extent, it was advantage Eintracht Frankfurt, who won away in Rosengard, and Brann who beat St Pölten.
There was a shock result in the Group of Death, Group C, as Ajax beat Paris Saint-Germain 2-0 to win their first ever Champions League match. Meanwhile Roma came from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Bayern Münich. And there was controversy in Group D, as Chelsea fell foul of some poor refereeing which meant that they only picked up a point away at Real Madrid. Paris FC lost to BK Häcken in an early blow to their hopes of qualifying from the group.
Are Bayern Münich any good?
On the face of it, Bayern Münich have one of the most balanced squads in Europe right now. They have signed well over the past couple of years, whilst long-term mainstays at the club have begun to hit their peak years. Realistically this is a team who should be targeting reaching the Champions League final. However, despite going two goals up against Italian champions Roma they were forced to settle for a point.
Bayern are in a tough group and cannot afford to drop many points so to throw away a two goal lead would have been particularly galling. In the absence of Pernille Harder and Lina Magull through injury, Jovana Damnjanovic has been playing as a number 10 behind Lea Schüller. The Serbian forward has traditionally been used as a striker but (despite being lucky to stay on the pitch after a terrible tackle) she demonstrated why Bayern could be such an exciting attacking season this season. Roaming across the pitch, switching with Schüller or with Klara Bühl on the left, Damnjanovic offered a midfield intensity with her physical presence as well as an added box threat. It is easy to see why Bayern targeted Harder who is perfect to play an identical role.
This is a team with strong ideas but a soft underbelly. There is a high chance that their cohesion in attack grows as the season continues and they become more dangerous in front of goal. But to become a side that truly has a chance of reaching the final, they need to stop being so open on the break. The pieces are there to be a talented side but it is not quite clicking yet.
Is control Chelsea’s most important asset this year?
Chelsea’s attempt to win a first UWCL has taken on extra import following the announcement of Emma Hayes’ departure to become US Women’s National Team manager at the end of the season. In the past, Chelsea have taken a rather chaotic approach to the competition. The year they reached the final, they rode their luck heavily in the quarter and semi-finals before being torn apart by Barcelona. The year after that, they exited at the group stage after managing to concede seven goals against Wolfsburg over two games.
Last year, however, we saw a somewhat different version of Chelsea. Against Lyon and Barcelona in their knockout matches, they were, well, boring. This was in part a reflection of injuries which saw them lose Millie Bright and Fran Kirby for the end of the season, whilst Pernille Harder was only just returning to the team by the time they reached the semi-final. But it was also an indication that Hayes knows that the attack-heavy football she has tended to prefer as Chelsea coach might not be their best pathway to European glory.
Despite only managing a draw, their game against Real Madrid was the most in control Chelsea have looked all season. So far in the WSL, they have been fairly free-scoring, putting up huge attacking numbers but giving opponents enough of their own chances at the same time. In Madrid, their non-penalty expected goals allowed was just 0.11, their lowest this season. Real Madrid had six touches in Chelsea’s penalty area, compared to Chelsea’s 37 in theirs.
Chelsea should probably have created more with the amount of the ball they had in dangerous areas but it is clear that neither Sam Kerr nor Fran Kirby are quite yet in form. But it looks like this version of Chelsea is a continuation of the same ideas that allowed them to become the first team to hold Barcelona to a draw at Camp Nou.
How do these early results reflect on the UWCL qualification process?
Much of the conversation ahead of this year’s group stage was around the qualification process. The Champions League is currently a sixteen team tournament with winners of leagues across Europe quite heavily favoured over second or third placed finishers in ‘bigger’ leagues when it comes to qualification. That led this year to two of last year’s semi-finalists (Arsenal and Wolfsburg) not even making the group stage.
The side who knocked both those teams out, Paris FC, lost their opening day match to BK Häcken whilst Paris Saint-Germain (who stopped Manchester United reaching a first ever group stage) lost to Ajax. It would obviously be silly to draw grand conclusions about the structure of the tournament based on some one-off matches but it is interesting to note that both the winning sides in those cases came from countries outside of the traditional ‘big’ leagues. Häcken are one of two Swedish sides to be in the group stage this year whilst Ajax became the first Dutch team to qualify.
Clearly there will also still be some big blow out results but even within the group stage itself it seems that it is hard to make a clear cut delineation that there are certain leagues which have much higher standards than others. Realistically, it more likely suggests that the rate of change for women’s football is far quicker than it is possible for a qualification system to adequately reflect.