It has been a year of firsts for Chelsea Ladies but their new-found domination of the domestic game is not quite enough for Emma Hayes’s players. Another, European, box remains to be ticked before women’s football shuts up shop for its winter hibernation.
Despite a first FA Cup final triumph and then winning England’s Super League title for the first time, Chelsea will be content only if yet another daunting hurdle has been surmounted by the end of next week.
Hayes hopes her team’s debut season in Europe will see them overcome Wolfsburg over two legs to reach the quarter-finals of the Women’s Champions League.
It has made Wednesday night’s first leg at Wheatsheaf Park, Staines – the return is seven days later at Wolfsburg’s superbly appointed, purpose-built 5,200 capacity home – one of the biggest games in Chelsea’s history.
Victory would represent the latest achievement of an extraordinary season. Wolfsburg were Champions League winners in 2013 and 2014 and stand second, behind Bayern Munich, in the female Bundesliga.
As if that pedigree were not sufficient, the Germans have an extra incentive to progress to next spring’s latter stages. Wolfsburg’s owner and main sponsor, Volkswagen, the predominant employer in a town housing the world’s biggest car manufacturing plant, is mired in the diesel emissions scandal and senior company executives have warned of “painful cuts” to come during a period of unexpected austerity in this bastion of paternalistic capitalism.
Wolfsburg’s women, acutely aware that, when VW sneezes, they are prone to catching a cold, hope that further European pre-eminence can help them build a compelling case for continued high-level investment. Losing semi-finalists to Paris Saint-Germain in a tournament won by Frankfurt last year, the team have, at least until now, been regarded as an important marketing vehicle by the car maker.
“They’re definitely going to be on a different level,” says Gemma Davison, the England winger and the Chelsea supporters’ player of the year. “When you play against any German side you know, straight away, their organisation will be top drawer. All Wolfsburg’s players will be on the same page. Their expectation is to win. They’re born and bred winners and they won’t settle for anything less.”
Davison has met these particular opponents before – as part of the Arsenal team who lost the 2013 semi-final to Wolfsburg and missed out on meeting Lyon in that season’s final at Stamford Bridge.
“Alexandra Popp’s still there; she’s one of Germany’s best players,” the 28-year-old says. “She played left-back when I came up against her and she was top class. They’ve also got Ramona Bachmann now, so we’ll have to take care of her.” Bachmann, a dangerous striker, partners the versatile Popp up front.
Winning a tie broadcast live on Chelsea TV and British Eurosport would be more about glory than hard cash. Although whoever prevails in the final – to be held in Reggio Emilia, Italy, in late May – will earn €250,000 (£177,000) of prize money, involvement in the earlier stages can leave participants out of pocket.
Each club receives €20,000 per round to underwrite expenses but this does not always cover the cost of visiting more far-flung destinations – as Arsenal discovered when they flew to Kazakhstan in 2007.
If a competition that struggles to command high-value sponsorships and sizeable television audiences remains light years away from its male equivalent (the Champions League holders, Barcelona, received €61m, of which €36.4m was prize money, last season) Hayes’s team are taking their status as England’s sole survivors seriously. With Liverpool having bowed out to Brescia in the last round, Davison knows Chelsea’s presence in the quarter-finals would offer the domestic game an appreciable fillip.
“We don’t just want to be in Europe,” says Davison, who narrowly missed the cut for Canada 2015, where an England side studded with Hayes’s players beat Germany in the World Cup’s third-place play-off. “We want to progress as far as we can. We have high expectations. But Wolfsburg will be no pushovers. They’re a top quality side with a lot of class. We won’t be taking them lightly.
“I think the home leg will be massive, it’s important we avoid defeat. We’ll be very organised and really keep our shape but the forward players have got to see if we can get a one- or two-goal lead to take into the second leg.
“We want a big crowd to cheer us on at Staines. We have to let Wolfsburg know what Chelsea’s all about. We’re going to cause them a lot of problems.”
Chelsea (4-2-3-1, probable): Lindahl; Blundell, Fahey, Flaherty, C Rafferty; Chapman, Bright; Davison, Ji, Aluko; Kirby.
Wolfsburg (4-4-2, probable): Schult; Fischer, Peter, Maritz, Simic; Bussaglia, Gössling, Blasse, Dickenmann; Bachmann, Popp.
