We’ve reached the quarter-final stage of the 2025-26 UEFA Women’s Champions League, but how does the Opta supercomputer predict the first-leg matches will play out?
The quarter-final stage of the 2025-26 UEFA Women’s Champions League is about to begin. Eight clubs remain and one of them will be crowned European champions in the final, hosted in Oslo on 23 May.
Can Arsenal retain their UWCL crown after sensationally defeating Barcelona in last season’s final? They became the first English winners of UEFA’s premier women’s competition since they previously won it themselves in 2007.
No other English club have won this competition, but Chelsea and Manchester United also remain among the final eight teams.
OL Lyonnes are record eight-time champions but must progress past Wolfsburg if they are to pick up their first title since 2022. Barcelona have reached five successive UWCL finals; rivals Real Madrid stand in the way of them making it six in a row.
Ahead of the first-leg matches this week, we check in on the Opta supercomputer’s predictions for all four matches across Tuesday and Wednesday.
Wolfsburg vs OL Lyonnes – Tuesday 24 March
You have likely seen this contest before in the UEFA Women’s Champions League. This will be the 12th meeting between Wolfsburg and OL Lyonnes in the competition, and next week’s second leg will set a new record of 13 between two teams in the competition.
They’ve already come up against one another in the UWCL this season, too. OL’s 3-1 win on Matchday 3 of the league phase came courtesy of an Ada Hegerberg brace followed by Wendy Renard’s second-half penalty, before Lineth Beerensteyn scored a late consolation.
That was OL’s seventh successive UWCL win over the German side, and the Opta supercomputer predicts that run will continue this Tuesday. OL Lyonnes won half (50.0%) of the pre-match simulations against Wolfsburg, with the Frauen-Bundesliga outfit winning in front of their own fans just 26.4% of the time.
Two players to keep a close eye on will be OL forward Melchie Dumornay and German legend Alexandra Popp.
Dumornay has recorded 10 goal involvements in nine UWCL knockout appearances (6 goals, 4 assists), and since her first campaign in 2023-24, the Haitian boasts the best minutes-per-goal-involvement rate in the knockout phase of the competition (71 minutes, 300+ minutes played).
Veteran striker Popp may have only scored twice in the UWCL this season, but she’s scored 12 goals in 18 league appearances in 2025-26.
Arsenal vs Chelsea – Tuesday 24 March
This match will see two teams from the same city clash for the first time in UEFA Women’s Champions League history as Arsenal host Chelsea in the first leg of their quarter-final tie at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night.
The Gunners are the reigning UWCL champions and are unbeaten against Chelsea in two previous clashes this season.
It took a late Alessia Russo goal to level the scores after Alyssa Thompson had given Chelsea a ninth-minute lead in their WSL meeting at the Emirates in November, but Arsenal were the better side that day.
Then, in January, Arsenal stunned Chelsea at Stamford Bridge with second-half goals from Beth Mead and Mariona Caldentey to secure their first win over their London rivals since December 2023.
Russo will undoubtedly be a major threat for Arsenal once again in this game; she is the competition’s top scorer this season heading into the quarter-finals (seven goals). Her next strike will set an outright record for the most goals by an English player in a single edition of the competition, while only Vivianne Miedema (10 in 2019-20) and Kim Little (nine in 2009-10) have netted more times for a WSL club in a campaign.
Chelsea have been on a good run of form since being demolished 5-1 by probable WSL champions Manchester City on 1 February. Their 1-1 draw with London City Lionesses at the weekend ended a five-game winning streak, which included a 2-0 win over Manchester United just over a week ago to win the League Cup.
The bad news for Chelsea is that they have lost four of their last five UWCL knockout games (winning the other), losing both legs of their most recent tie 4-1 to Barcelona in last season’s semi-finals.
The Opta supercomputer has struggled to split these two sides in its 10,000 pre-match simulations, with Chelsea only just edging the battle (37.5%) over Renée Slegers’ side (36.3%). It promises to be a close first leg ahead of their second meeting next week in west London.
Real Madrid vs Barcelona – Wednesday 25 March
Real Madrid vs Barcelona will always be a fixture to look forward to, and this clash will be no different. Unlike in senior men’s football, however, the history in this fixture has been rather lopsided in the women’s game.
Barcelona have won 21 of their 22 (L1) meetings with Real Madrid in women’s football and won each of their eight away Clásico matches by an aggregate score of 30-2, netting at least three times in every match.
One positive for Madrid is that their solitary victory over Barcelona did come recently, when they beat them for the first time in March 2025. However, the Blaugrana won 4-0 at home in the league in November, 2-0 in January’s Supercopa final and, most recently, 4-0 away in the Copa de la Reina quarter-finals last month.
In between these two UWCL clashes, Real Madrid and Barcelona also face off in the league next weekend. But with Madrid already 10 points behind their rivals and only seven matchdays left to play, this feels like their only serious opportunity of getting one over Barcelona.
The Opta supercomputer isn’t keen on their chances of doing that, though. Barcelona won the away leg of this tie in 61.1% of the 10,000 pre-game simulations, while Real Madrid picked up the victory just 18.6% of the time.
Manchester United vs Bayern Munich – Wednesday 25 March
Manchester United and Bayern Munich will meet in a competitive women’s football match for the first time on Wednesday night.
United, who are playing in their first UWCL campaign, know this is probably their best chance of silverware in 2025-26 having lost the League Cup final to Chelsea last weekend and after suffering an FA Cup exit to the Blues a month earlier.
They stand an outside chance of WSL success but realistically will need to beat rivals Man City at the weekend to have any hope of stopping their rivals’ march to the title.
Man Utd’s only previous UWCL game against a German opponent ended in a 5-2 defeat to Wolfsburg in this season’s league phase. They conceded more goals in that game than across their other seven matches in the competition combined (4), but they have kept the most clean sheets in the competition in 2025-26 (5), including their last three games in a row.
After kicking off their 2025-26 UWCL campaign with a dismal 7-1 defeat at Barcelona, Bayern dropped just two points in their remaining five league phase matches (W4 D1).
But the German club’s record in England might play into Man Utd’s hands. Each of Bayern Munich’s five home games against English opposition in the UWCL have ended in victory, but all of their four away matches have been lost.
The Opta supercomputer saw Manchester United edge this first leg in its 10,000 pre-game simulations. Marc Skinner’s side won 37.3% of the time, just ahead of Bayern’s 35.4% win rate.
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