Arsenal Faces Barcelona and Lyon in Women's Champions League Draw
Key Points
- Arsenal will host Lyon, Benfica and HB Koge while travelling to Barcelona, Paris FC and Inter Milan.
- Chelsea will face Paris St-Germain, Roma and Austria Wien at home, with away trips to Lyon, Hacken and OH Leuven.
- Manchester City will play PSG, Real Madrid and Austria Wien at home, facing Bayern Munich, Hacken and Inter Milan away.
Arsenal and Chelsea Drawn Against Continental Opposition
Arsenal's fixture list presents significant European opposition from the outset. The club will encounter Barcelona, one of the competition's dominant forces, and Lyon, which has won the Women's Champions League eight times. HB Koge, drawn from pot three, provides the most manageable home fixture after Arsenal defeated them twice in the 2021-22 campaign.
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Chelsea faces a similarly demanding draw with Paris St-Germain appearing in their home fixtures alongside Roma and Austria Wien. The European tie attracting most attention involves Bompastor's return to Lyon, where she previously worked as manager. Chelsea will also travel to face Hacken in Sweden and OH Leuven in Belgium.
Manchester City, placed in pot three after missing European football in the previous season, will host PSG, Real Madrid and Austria Wien. The club will face Bayern Munich, Hacken and Inter Milan away. Barcelona and Bayern will replay their 2025-26 semi-final in Munich as part of the league phase fixtures, while Bayern will also travel to face PSG.
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The draw placed all 18 clubs into three pots of six and assigned two opponents to each—one home and one away—from each pot. Arsenal and Chelsea were seeded in pot one, while Manchester City was positioned in pot three. The first matchday of the league phase will be played on 22 and 23 September, with the sixth and final games scheduled for 16 December. The knockout phase play-offs will follow in February 2027, with quarter-finals in March and semi-finals in early May. The final in Warsaw is scheduled for the final week of May.
For Arsenal, the draw offers a pathway to European glory through competition against the continent's strongest teams at a critical stage in the competition's 18th edition.
Sources: BBC Sport and other international news outlets.
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