VfL Women have one of the highlights of the season to look forward to this week, with their UEFA Women’s Champions League quarter-final first leg at home to Barcelona on Wednesday at 18:45 CET. Ahead of the clash at the Volkswagen Arena, VfL captain Alexandra Popp spoke to us about how she expects it to play out, facing former team-mate Ewa Pajor and why the 3-1 defeat to Bayern last weekend will not be a problem in terms of mindset.
Alexandra, what has the atmosphere been like among the players after the Bayern game?
Alexandra Popp: “We were disappointed until Saturday, but by Monday we were back in training and I knew there would be a good atmosphere heading into the Champions League. Matches like these are always very special.”
The last time you played Barcelona was in the final in the 2022/23 season. How different are the two sides from back then?
Alexandra: “When you look at how the squads are made up, there have been plenty of changes. A lot of top-quality players have left the club as far as we’re concerned, and finding direct replacements straight away is no easy task. Despite that, we still have a lot of quality in the team. Barcelona have also lost a few players and brought a lot of quality in, unfortunately including a top striker from us [Ewa Pajor], who’s scoring goals for fun at the moment. That’s probably the main difference in the development of the two teams, but at the end of the day, it will be down to who performs better on the night.”
Now you face Ewa as an opponent for the first time. How will you go about stopping her and the rest of the Barcelona attack?
Alexandra: “Ewa is just one of a number of very speedy players in the Barcelona squad, and they’ve got a lot of ball-playing talent in midfield as well. It means that we’re going to have to be very aggressive, stay compact and stop them from enjoying themselves out there. That’ll be crucial for us, and then we’ll have to be as clinical as possible when we get opportunities in transition.”
How important is it to take a good result away from the first leg?
Alexandra: “It’s extremely important. Especially since we’re at home, we’ll have our fans behind us so we want to get a good result – a very good result if we can. And we also know what it’s like to play in Barcelona. We need to impose our game if we’re to get a good result for ourselves.”
