The She-Wolves have two huge games coming up. On Wednesday 13 November they are in Istanbul to face Galatasaray in the group stage of the UEFA Women's Champions League (kick-off 18:45 CET), before hosting the Turkish side in the return fixture a week later. The Green-and-Whites need to win both matches in order to keep their hopes of progressing to the quarter-finals alive.
At his pre-match press conference, head coach Tommy Stroot gave his thoughts on …
…team news: "Our long-term absentees Caitlyn Dijkstra, Kristin Demann and Camilla Küver are all unavailable. On top of that, Tabea Sellner and Marina Hegering are both out [with knocks], as are Lena Lattwein and Alexandra Popp [with colds]."
…women's football in Turkey: "We played against Besiktas in my last year at Twente Enschede, so this isn't the first time that I'm going up against Turkish opposition. In that game, some Turkish fans climbed over the fences in order to watch the match. The atmosphere was incredible. I think one of the defining characteristics of Turkish football in general is the love the fans have for their clubs."
…the opposition: "We've studied Galatasaray's Champions League matches and qualifying games. They might be new to the competition, but I was surprised by the way they played in possession at times against Lyon and Roma. Not only are they always well organised in all phases of the game, they have some players with great individual quality who can pose problems in attack."
…VfL's situation: "Our position is clear. We're well aware just how important the matches against Galatasaray are. But we wanted to win both games anyway, so from our perspective nothing has really changed. We want to put ourselves in a position to qualify for the next round in December. The best thing we could do would be to score a few goals in order to keep Roma under as much pressure as possible and to put ourselves in a good position."
