The women of Paris SG export their ambitions to Bayern MunichTuesday (6:45 p.m.) at the start of the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, a difficult test for the partners of Marie-Antoinette Katoto, less varnished than their rivals from OL expected Wednesday in Turin.
The shock between Parisiennes and Munichoises, semi-finalists last season, promises to be hung in a setting conducive to the spectacle: the Allianz Arena and its 70,000 seats opens its doors to the women’s section of Bayern for the first time. The choice of setting shows the importance attached by the German club to this meeting, against an impressive French team in the group stage, which they mastered from start to finish with six wins, twenty-five goals scored and none. cashed.
Lea Schüller and Viviane Asseyi’s Bayern, both scorers on Friday against Eintracht Frankfurt (4-2) in the Frauen Bundesliga, showed during this first part of the season that he also had to be counted on. Olympique Lyonnais paid the price, beating 1-0 in mid-November in Munich on a goal from their former player Saki Kumagai. “I immediately said that it was one of the most difficult draws”, noted Parisian coach Didier Ollé-Nicolle on Monday, praising the merits of a “true homogeneous collective”, “with a lot of German internationals coming of age together”. The pressure therefore goes up a notch with these confrontations in round trip format, where the slightest misstep can be very expensive. “The very interesting, and also terrible, part of this competition comes at the quarter-final level”summarizes Ollé-Nicolle. “It’s a new adventure that starts” while the Champions League is “a goal from the start of the season” in Paris as in Bayern, Lyon or Barcelona, he said.
PSG have prepared for the confrontation in Germany with a revamped squad, but victorious, Friday against Soyaux (2-0). Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Sakina Karchaoui and Sara Däbritz notably started the game on the bench. Midfielder Kheira Hamraoui did not take off and it was Aminata Diallo, the usual substitute, who played the entire game and sealed Parisian success by scoring the second goal. The two players are part of the group of 21 Parisiennes who joined Germany on Monday, unlike Polish central defender Paulina Dudek and young Jade Le Guilly, both injured.
The quarter-final schedule: Tuesday, March 22 (6:45 p.m.) Bayern – Paris SG (return March 30), (9:00 p.m.) Real Madrid – Barcelona, Wednesday, March 23 (6:45 p.m.) Juventus – Lyon, (9:00 p.m.) Arsenal – Wolfsburg
With AFP