UEFA Women’s Champions League Quarter‑Final Preview: Real Madrid Vs Barcelona Clasico; Holders Arsenal Face Chelsea

The quarterfinals of the Women’s Champions League kick off this week featuring the Real Madrid-Barcelona Spanish rivalry and the all-London encounter between defending champion Arsenal and Chelsea.

The last-eight will also include the latest chapter in the historic rivalry between Lyon and Wolfsburg, two of the powerhouses in women’s soccer. Manchester United, making its quarterfinal debut, will take on Bayern Munich.

Barcelona, Lyon, Chelsea and Bayern Munich earned an automatic spot in the quarterfinals by finishing in the top-four in the new league phase. The other four teams advanced through the playoffs featuring the teams that finished fifth to 12th.

The winner between Madrid and Barcelona will face either Man United or Bayern Munich, while the other semifinal will feature either Arsenal or Chelsea against Wolfsburg or Lyon.

The first legs of the semifinals will be in April and the return matches will be in May. The final will be in Oslo on May 23.

Spanish clasico

Three-time champion Barcelona, seeking a record sixth straight final, will take on Madrid on Wednesday in a clasico that has historically tilted Barcelona’s way in women’s soccer.

The Catalan club, the league-phase winner, is aiming to reach the Champions League semifinal for the eighth consecutive time, while Madrid has never made it to the top four in the European club competition.

“I have so many good memories from the Women’s Champions League and those memories give you so much motivation to try to make it happen again, because it’s like an addiction,” Barcelona forward Caroline Graham Hansen told UEFA. “You just want that feeling to happen as often as possible, and you have one chance every year to win that trophy. Like every player in Europe playing for big teams, it’s what you want to achieve at the end of the season.”

The Spanish rivals met in the 2021-22 quarterfinals, with Barcelona advancing 8-3 on aggregate. The second leg was played in front of a then world record crowd of 91,553 at Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium. The second leg against Madrid this season will be the first women’s game at the newly revamped stadium.

Madrid beat Barcelona for the first time in 2025. This year it lost to Barcelona 4-0 in the Spanish league, 2-0 in Spanish Super Cup and 4-0 in the Copa de la Reina. They are set to to meet again in the Spanish league in Madrid on the weekend between the two quarterfinal legs in the Champions League.

Madrid, playing in its fifth European campaign, was seventh in the league phase.

London derby

The Arsenal-Chelsea matchup on Tuesday at Arsenal Stadium will mark the first time in Women’s Champions League history that two teams from the same city face off.

The titleholders are in the last-eight for a joint-record 17th time along with Lyon, while Chelsea — seeking its first trophy in the competition — is appearing in the quarterfinals for the seventh time.

“We have two big games coming up against Chelsea, so only one English team is going to go through from that quarterfinal, but that’s a challenge we can hopefully step up to,” Arsenal forward Beth Mead told UEFA.

Chelsea ended third in the league phase, finishing joint-top with Barcelona in both goals scored (20) and fewest conceded (3).

Arsenal was fifth in the league phase and got through the playoffs with a comfortable 7-1 aggregate win over Leuven.

Old rivalry

Wolfsburg and Lyon will write the latest chapter in their rivalry beginning on Tuesday at Wolfsburg Arena.

The first leg will mark that teams’ 12th meeting in the Women’s Champions League, equaling the most-played fixture — along with Lyon vs. Paris Saint-Germain. The record will be broken outright in the return leg in France.

Wolfsburg won the first meeting — the 2013 final in London, but Lyon has had the best in the rivalry since then. It won three finals against the German club — in 2016, 2018 and 2020.

It also came out on top in the last-eight encounters in the 2016-17 and 2018-19 seasons, and earned two group-stage victories last season. Lyon also won their encounter in the league phase this season.

Eight-time champion Lyon finished second in the league phase, while two-time champion Wolfsburg was ninth and got past Juventus in the playoffs.

United’s debut

Man United’s quarterfinal debut will be on Wednesday at home against Bayern Munich, which is looking to make it to its third semifinal.

The clubs are meeting for the first time in UEFA women’s club competition.

Lea Schüller joined Man United in January after scoring more than 100 goals in five and a half years with Bayern Munich. United’s Julia Zigiotti Olme and Fridolina Rolfö are also former Bayern players.

Bayern was fourth in the league phase, while Man United finished 6th.

Bayern’s only loss in the league phase was a 7-1 rout by Barcelona in the first round.