Chelsea 1-0 Austria Vienna: Women’s Champions League – live reaction

I’m going to write these down, then we’ll take a closer look at what might come to pass. In the meantime, though, elsewhere it’s Leuven 0-0 Roma and Servette 0-7 Lyon, with just under 70 minutes gone.

Chelsea (3-5-2): Peng; Buchanan, Buurman, McCabe; Carpenter, Kaptein, Walsh, Nusken, Thompson; Malard, Baltimore. Subs: Hampton, Rudz, Girma, Bjorn, Dragoni, Las, Bronze, Hamano, Brown, Potter, Sarwie.

Austria Vienna (3-5-2-): Pal; Wenninger, Schiechtl, Kirchberger; Schoffel, Potzl, Pfattner, Weiss, Hanshaw; Uka, Pfanner. Subs: Goetz, Gartner, Pucci, Cordes, Sisic, Jakobsen, Orkic, Schorn, Pichler.

Referee: Miriama Bockova (Slovakia)

No English club has won more WSL titles than Chelsea’s eight; of those eight, four were doubles and three were trebles; only Chelsea have been champions three times in a row, never mind the streak of six they managed between 2019-20 and 2024-25; and yet.

And yet never have Chelsea been champions of Europe; incredibly, they’ve reached only one final, a wound deepened and doused in salted TCP by Arsenal achieving the feat twice.

Now, as they begin an 11th tilt at it, they are no longer even champions of England, finishing third last season, and also sit third in the current league table, having drawn their opening match against lowly Aston Villa. Since then, they’ve whacked Manchester United and beaten Birmingham but, without Lauren James, Erin Cuthbert, Manaka Matsukobo and Aggie Beever-Jones, are still some way short of full power.

Nevertheless they should have enough to get by Austria Vienna, making their debut in the competition proper having fallen at the final qualifying round last term. But it won’t have escaped the notice of either team that, last evening, Arsenal required an injury-time penalty to see off Køge, which is to say that though could be one-sided, it could also be very much not.