Women’s Champions League final: what it’s like to face Barcelona and Wolfsburg

The narrative of the last three Champions League finals has been similar, with one team really coming out, dominating and profiting from their goalscoring opportunities early on. It is the chance to get momentum and give the opponents a game they maybe hadn’t prepared for. In last year’s final, Barcelona were on the receiving end of a fast start from Lyon. In Saturday’s final, between Barcelona and Wolfsburg, we will likely see both teams attempt to start aggressively.

Jonatan Giráldez’s Barcelona will want to keep the ball, in keeping with their style, but they also press aggressively and will try to pen Wolfsburg back into their half. Wolfsburg, who knocked out my team, Arsenal, in the semi-finals, will do the opposite. They don’t like building and will try to frame the game around counterattacking moments and profit from those. If they lose the ball deep, they’re going to be very aggressive in their defensive man-marking and counterpressing to try to win it back. I imagine the first 15 minutes may be very, very intense.

In terms of focal points, there are tons of tactical details you could pick out. A potentially gamechanging one is how Barcelona’s right-back, maybe Lucy Bronze if she’s fit, manages the Iceland forward Sveindís Jónsdóttir. Barcelona do not have as much explosiveness and speed up front as Wolfsburg offer through Jónsdóttir and Ewa Pajor, and they are not as direct, but it is so difficult to win the ball off them. And when they do lose the ball, they are so well positioned to counterpress, win it back quickly and keep the ball in the area they lost it in, making your exertions fruitless.

When you win the ball against Barcelona there is always space to go out diagonally – if you can be good enough and