Women’s Champions League: will OL Lyonnes or English trio topple a weakened Barcelona?

This competition is wide open. You might say, "But you say that every year!" This time, it really is wide open. The league phase of the new Women's Champions League season starts on Tuesday. It feels unpredictable and exciting because Barcelona, the current champions who have won four titles in six years, made major changes to their team this summer.

The Spanish champions, who have reached six European finals in a row, have had four players who started the victory in the final last season leave the club. Ona Batlle joined Arsenal, Salma Paralluelo signed for OL Lyonnes – against whom she scored twice in that 4-0 victory to clinch the title in May – and Alexia Putellas and Mapi León moved to London City Lionesses. They have a very different look and feel to the formidable aura they demonstrated in Oslo.

Related: WSL talking points: Arsenal’s attacking woes and Goodwin makes England case

Even so, they remain the team to beat. They still have an excellent squad. It includes Aitana Bonmatí, who has won the last three Ballons d'Or, though she may miss their opening match against Paris FC on Wednesday because of injury. The squad also includes Ewa Pajor, the top scorer in the competition last season, and their captain, Spain midfielder Patri Guijarro.

It will still take a world-class team to beat them. But this time, they may no longer seem unbeatable.

OL Lyonnes hope to take advantage and win back a title they have not held since 2022. That gap feels long because they are the record winners, with eight titles in total. They had a good transfer window. They signed Paralluelo, who scored her first goal for the club on Friday in an 8-1 win over Le Havre. They also signed Scotland midfielder Caroline Weir, who joined after four years at Real Madrid.

Lifting the European Cup would be a defining achievement for their owner, Michele Kang, who also owns Washington Spirit and London City Lionesses, and for their head coach, Jonatan Giráldez, if he could win the competition with a second team after his back-to-back successes with Barcelona in 2023 and 2024.

Bayern Munich should be among the contenders, along with three English teams – Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. All three have squads and resources strong enough to make a serious challenge. Arsenal won the competition in 2025. They also won it in 2007, when it was called the Women's Cup. Arsenal remain the only English club to have won a major European trophy. This seems surprising given the heavy spending in the WSL today. The WSL and the NWSL often compete for the unofficial title of "best league in the world."

The WSL’s three most successful sides, for all their financial investments, are yet to dominate in Europe, and that could begin to change this season. Arsenal strengthened the depth in their squad this summer, not least with the arrivals of Georgia Stanway from Bayern and Batlle from Barcelona. Their ability to bring top-level internationals on from the bench in almost every position should make them a real force.

Manchester City, the champions of English football, reached the quarter-finals in 2025. But they did not reach that stage last season, and they want to prove a point and make up for the lost time. They were also absent from Europe in the 2023-24 season. In the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, they did not get past the qualifying rounds. In both of those seasons, Real Madrid knocked them out.

They were also eliminated relatively early by another side from the Spanish capital, Atlético Madrid, in 2018-19 and 2019-20, so they have not reached the semi-finals since 2017-18, a barren run which felt unlikely at the time.

They were delighted to retain the services of the WSL’s top scorer, Khadija Shaw, and it will be fascinating to watch the Jamaica striker unleashed on Europe’s biggest club competition. City’s campaign begins with a tricky looking test away to Bayern.

Chelsea have only reached the final once, when they lost to Barcelona in 2021. They would love to reach the top stage again this season. The final will be held in May at Poland's national stadium in Warsaw.

Real Madrid strengthened their attack by signing Felicia Schröder from the Swedish champions, Häcken. She was the breakout player of last season's first Women's Europa Cup. Real Madrid will start their campaign at home against Paris Saint-Germain.

Many people may find it a bit strange that the WCL starts on Tuesday without Putellas. The Spain midfielder has been one of the competition's biggest names for many years, so her absence stands out. Wolfsburg's absence is also surprising. The two-time champions had reached this stage for 14 years in a row. At one point, they even made 11 straight quarter-finals. That run ended in a shock defeat, when they lost to Inter on penalties in qualifying. Inter are one of three Italian teams in the league phase. This is the first time that many Serie A teams have reached this stage. Austria Wien and Inter are both playing at this stage for the first time.

The 18-team league stage continues until 16 December. The top four teams move straight into the quarter-finals in March. Teams that finish between fifth and 12th place will play a knockout-round playoff in February.