VfL Women get to have a first look around the Stadio Curva Fiesole at Viola Park this evening. Tomorrow, they’ll be walking out for real when they take on ACF Fiorentina from 20:00 CEST in the first leg of their qualifier for the UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage. Wölfe TV is showing the clash live and exclusively on YouTube.
Ahead of the match, VfL head coach Tommy Stroot spoke about…
…the team news: “Kathy Hendrich and Fenna Kalma are back in the squad and fit to play, so we expect they can be deployed as normal. Luca Papp won’t be available. She picked up an ankle injury at Jena and we expect her to be out for two to three weeks.”
…the mood among the players: “We all want to get through to the group stage of the Champions League. That’s the expectation we have of ourselves, which is why progression is a topic that’s not even up for debate. We saw another example of how difficult that is with Eintracht Frankfurt. However, we also know we have a very good opportunity in the two games against Fiorentina to reach our target, and that we have the quality to do it. It’s clear to us that we’re going to invest everything across the two games to come away as winners.”
…Fiorentina: “They’re not a typical Italian team, but rather – like Roma or Juventus – more international opponents with a lot of players who aren’t from Italy. I happened to see the game between Ajax and Fiorentina and got a good idea of the team’s qualities. Obviously, we’ve looked at them in more depth now. They’re defensively very well structured and have a clear plan for how they want to attack. It’s clear there are no easy opponents in the Champions League and therefore we need two very good performances to reach the group stage.”
