Arsenal and Manchester United face familiar opponents in a revamped competition that has so far proven more competitive
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he next phase of the new Women’s Champions League format gets under way on Wednesday and Thursday, when the four playoff first legs take place. Arsenal and Manchester United are among eight teams vying to join Barcelona, Lyon, Chelsea and Bayern Munich, who automatically qualified for the quarter-finals as the top four in the league phase.
As in the men’s competition, a switch from a group stage to the league format has been made. However, with the UWCL group stage having been introduced only for the 2021-22 season, there was scepticism about a change coming so soon, with the group stage viewed as a big step forward and in its relative infancy.
There are few surprises in the playoffs, given three of the four ties taking place this week and next bring together teams who met during the league phase, with four teams seeded and four teams unseeded for the draw, but the new format has yielded plenty of positives.
