The UEFA Women’s Champions League is back and bigger than ever. This season, not only is every game streaming on Disney+ in Europe, but there also are 18 teams instead of the usual 16, and one large group-stage table instead of separate, smaller groups.
The 18 teams to have qualified are current holders Arsenal (ENG), Barcelona (ESP), OL Lyonnes (FRA), Chelsea (ENG), Bayern Munich (GER), Wolfsburg (GER), Paris Saint-Germain (FRA), Real Madrid (ESP), Juventus (ITA), Roma (ITA), St. Polten (AUT), Twente (NED), Vålerenga (NOR), Paris FC (FRA), Manchester United (ENG), Atlético Madrid (ESP), OH Leuven (BEL), Benfica (POR).
But which one should you be rooting for? We bring you eight questions to help narrow the search, as the first fixtures on Oct. 7 get ever closer.
Jump to: Is a USWNT international key? | Scary team nickname? | Have to spend on transfers? | Need attacking football? | Want a cool mascot? | My team as a film? | My team as a band or artist?
All illustrations by Rafa Alvarez
If you just can’t live without European silverware, you don’t have too many options this season. Of the 18 teams in the new league phase of the competition, only four have won it before as Eintracht Frankfurt — formerly known as FFC Frankfurt — have lifted the trophy four times previously but didn’t make it out of the qualifying round.
YES
8 – OL Lyonnes (formerly known as Lyon and now rebranded under the direction of owner Michelle Kang) have won it the most times. After losing to Barcelona in the 2024 final, they spent big this summer on a host of top stars to try to bring back the glory days.
3 – Barcelona lost to Arsenal in the 2025 final but have made the final five times in five years and won three of them (2021, 2023, 2024).
2 – VfL Wolfsburg picked up back-to-back titles in 2013 and 2014 but have slipped off the radar a bit after finishing as runners-up in 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2023.
2 – Arsenal won the tournament last season, but their previous championship came in 2007, when legendary Chelsea manager and current USWNT boss Emma Hayes was their assistant.
The likes of Sweden’s Umeå (2), Germany’s Turbine Potsdam (2) and FCR Duisburg (1) all found success in the early years — back when it was called the UEFA Women’s Cup, from 2001 to 2009 — but they are no longer competitors at the highest level.
NO
That leaves everyone else in the competition — including giant clubs such as Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Benfica and Juventus — with a grand total of ZERO European titles. And this year, Manchester United and OH Leuven had never even made it to the group stage before.
The United States national women’s team is one of the most dominant forces in the game, though not a huge number of its stars had made the move over to play in Europe until recently. Hope Solo and Aly Wagner were two of the first when they signed for Lyon (now OL Lyonnes) in 2005, with the likes of Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan following after, but right now there are only five teams with a current USWNT international in the squad.
YES:
OL Lyonnes (Lindsey Heaps, Lily Yohannes, Korbin Shrader)
Arsenal (Emily Fox, Jenna Nighswonger)
Chelsea (Alyssa Thompson, Catarina Macario, Naomi Girma)
Paris Saint-Germain (Crystal Dunn, Eva Gaetino)
Manchester United (Phallon Tullis-Joyce).
NO:
Everyone else from the most recent USWNT squads plays in the NWSL.
We’re going to go out on a limb here to say that all soccer clubs’ nicknames pretty much come from only three places. Although regular watchers of the NWSL might know your teams as the Thorns (Portland) or Pride (Orlando), European sides don’t include their nickname in their team name.
That leaves a whole load of explaining to do, and for the most part, the women’s teams are still nicknamed the same as the men’s. But it does make for some interesting additions — though not for debutants Oud-Heverlee Leuven, who have nothing to offer beyond OH Leuven. Boring.
Wolfsburg: Die Wölfinnen (The She-Wolves). They sound utterly terrifying, though the men’s team (The Wolves) also go by “The White and Greens.”
St. Polten: The Wolfe (The Wolf). Another wolf, and down to the fact the Austrian side has one on its club badge.
Benfica: As Águias (The Eagles). Put a big eagle on your club crest, and this is what you get.
Arsenal: The Gunners. The club was originally formed by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, a munitions factory that produced weapons and artillery, and there’s a big cannon on the crest that kind of explains everything.
OL Lyonnes: Les Fenottes (The Girls). You can’t be called Lyonnes without there being a lion involved, right? Wrong. It’s from the local dialect of Lyon, and the men’s team follows suit with Les Gones (The Boys).
Paris Saint-Germain: Les Parisiennes (The Parisians). If you know your geography, you can figure this one out yourself.
Manchester United: The Red Devils. It might seem like an animal, but it actually comes from a local rugby club, Salford, that was dubbed “Les Diables Rouges” during a tour of France in 1934. Legendary men’s manager Sir Matt Busby evidently liked the nickname so much he adopted it in the aftermath of the 1958 Munich Air Disaster, and the red devil appeared on the club badge for the first time in 1973.
Twente: De Tukkers. This is a local name given to people from the region of Enschede, where the club was founded in 1965.
Vålerenga: Enga. Yeah, it’s just the last four letters of their name, but they’ve also tried to do a bit more with “Bohemene” (Bohemians) due to their exciting style of play, and “De kongeblå” (The Royal Blues) which is simply based on their shirt color.
Barcelona: Blaugrana. Because they play in dark shades of blue and maroon stripes.
Chelsea: The Blues. Again, because they play in blue.
Real Madrid: Las Blancas. You guessed it — the Whites — though the Spanish feminine is used rather than the men’s Los Blancos.
Atlético Madrid: Rojiblancas (The Red-Whites). But we much prefer “Los Colchoneras” (The Mattressers) due to the similarity of their shirt design to local mattress covers back in in 1911.
Bayern Munich: Die Roten (The Reds). Sadly, the women’s team has yet to fully take on one of the men’s monikers of FC Hollywood. But give it time.
Juventus: Bianconere (Black and whites). Vertical stripes are much nicer than horizontal ones, and Juve have never really played in anything else. Unsurprisingly, the women’s team is not referred to by the men’s nickname of “Old Lady.”
Roma: Giallorossi (The Yellow and Reds). Traditional club colors, but we prefer another option: La Lupa (The She-Wolf), which is based on the crest.
Paris FC: Les Bleus (The Blues). No, not the France national team.
If you think the world of transfer fees in men’s football is murky, there is even less information out there in the women’s game; nearly everything is “undisclosed” or a free transfer, so take the reported fees below with a pinch of salt.
Spending power has yet to reach stratospheric levels — despite the women’s transfer record being broken FOUR times in 2025 so far — but it’s clear that some clubs have more freedom to bring in new talent than others.
Chelsea: They are the ultimate big spenders in both the men’s and women’s game. Chelsea set the current state of affairs into action with their $334,000 world-record signing of Wolfsburg midfielder Pernille Harder in 2020 — the first time the record had been broken since 2002. Then the Blues broke it again in 2024 with striker Mayra Ramírez ($486,000), as midfielder Keira Walsh ($572,000) followed shortly after, and then broke it AGAIN in January 2025 with USWNT defender Naomi Girma ($1.1m). Their spending power knows no bounds.
Arsenal: The Gunners have tried to break the world transfer record a few times in recent years, but finally did it with Liverpool forward Olivia Smith arriving this summer for a cool $1.3 million. The likes of Chloe Kelly and Taylor Hinds are great free transfers, but Arsenal have also shown the propensity to reach into their pockets when needed.
OL Lyonnes: The French giants have rebuilt their squad over the past year and brought in the likes of Tarciane ($830,000) and Lily Yohannes ($500,000) recently, but they are also canny free-transfer operators and landed Jule Brand, Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Ingrid Engen, Ashley Lawrence and Korbin Shrader that way this summer.
Manchester United: The club is among the top four revenue earners from the Deloitte Money League 2025 but doesn’t have much money to spend. Speaking about the new $1.9 million world-record transfer of PSG’s Grace Geyoro to London City Lionesses this summer, manager Marc Skinner said: “I just think we won’t be able to, right now, go to those levels of transfer fee. I’ll be honest about that. The reality is we have to try and find our own way to do it, to adapt, to evolve, and to find space in the market where we can still bring top players to Manchester United.”
For example, if United want to sign a player like Man City midfielder Jess Park, they have to let Grace Clinton go in the other direction. Most of their moves are free transfers such as Fridolina Rolfö and Elisabeth Terland.
Real Madrid: Also among the top revenue earners in the game, Madrid still aren’t at a level where they can splash big money on a single player. Similar to United, a lot of their moves come from free transfers, such as Sara Däbritz, Sara Holmgaard and Alba Redondo.
Paris Saint-Germain, Wolfsburg, Juventus, Roma, Benfica: The fact of the matter is that players who sign for big money have to come from somewhere … and so some clubs are able to bake this approach into their transfer business.
PSG have made a habit of seeing many of their top stars move on, though mostly to rivals OL Lyonnes and mostly for free, with the exception of Geyoro and Sandy Baltimore. Wolfsburg made a tidy sum from allowing Harder (Chelsea), Sofie Svava (Real Madrid), Lena Oberdorf (Bayern), Pajor (Barcelona) and Jill Roord (Man City) to move in recent years. Juventus, Roma and Benfica are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to raising money and just can’t compete with the elite.
Of course, that’s true for most clubs in the women’s game, so that means they have to try other means.
Barcelona: The Liga F giants can spend with the best of them — such as 2022’s move for midfielder Walsh ($470,000) or 2024’s splash to land forward Kika Nazareth ($432,000) and striker Ewa Pajor ($429,000) — but recent financial issues have curbed their efforts, and they now need to rely on exits such as Jana Fernández ($350,000 to London City this summer) or their academy. Luckily, La Masia is one of the best, if not the best, in the world at producing talent.
Bayern: Bayern can also go big when needed, as they did to land Wolfsburg’s Oberdorf in 2024 ($484,000), but their star midfielder picked up a long-term injury and they have been reticent to take that kind of step again. That said, they did do good business to bring in Vanessa Gilles from Angel City in May.
Atletico, Paris FC, Twente, OH Leuven, St. Polten, Vålerenga: There’s just not enough money in the women’s game for clubs further down the pyramid to make big signings. These teams might be in the top 18 in Europe, but that doesn’t mean an open checkbook, so they have to rely on those from within.
YES: Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Roma
Every team needs to know how to defend, but these women make no apologies for focusing on the attacking end of the pitch. Barcelona like to dominate up front, with 202 chances created last season; they also had the most goals (44), shots (252; 104 on goal), assists (30) and possession (72.6%).
Bayern had the third-highest possession rate (61.4%) behind Barcelona and Arsenal, and were also just behind those two in their pass completion in the final third (82.9%), which shows they like to stay up the pitch where possible. And Roma were widely known as one of Europe’s most attacking teams under the management of Alessandro Spugna before he left this summer, so surely that will continue.
NO: Juventus, Atletico Madrid, OH Leuven, Twente, St. Polten, Vålerenga
When you are facing the elite teams in this tournament, it’s hard to attack. But these clubs can take solace in the fact they can do things differently if needed. Juventus had just 3,125 touches from their eight UWCL games last season — that’s 10 less than Galatasaray, who conceded the most goals (29) — and an xG of 6.69.
Paris Saint-Germain were eliminated in the second qualifying round after suffering two defeats to Juve, so there aren’t many stats available for them. But they generally used a 3-5-2 formation and an aggressive high-press structure. Meanwhile, Atletico Madrid pride themselves on their defense and, to be frank, the likes of OH Leuven, Twente, St. Polten and Vålerenga can’t focus on attacking if they are to compete.
BALANCE OF ATTACK AND DEFENSE: Arsenal, Chelsea, OL Lyonnes
Arsenal won the tournament last year thanks to some incredible play at both ends of the pitch. Though the Gunners played a few more games than their rivals (due to going through qualifying), they had not only the most crosses attempted (343), take-ons (265) and touches (11,560), but also the most duels (1,156), ball recoveries (735) and fouls (99), showing it’s not all about attack for them.
Chelsea also pride themselves on being defensively sound, and their 51.3% tackle success rate (from 207 made) was the best in the UWCL last season, and they also came away successful from 51.4% of their duels.
OL Lyonnes are one of the most balanced teams out there. Last season they kept the most clean sheets (6) and let in only seven goals from their 10 games — and four of those came against Arsenal in the semifinal second leg.
ATTACK WHEN THEY CAN: Wolfsburg, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Paris FC, Benfica, Manchester United
Wolfsburg scored the third-most goals (30) and created the third-most chances (150) but also made the most tackles last season (210). And PSG have lost the likes of Katoto and Geyoro but have some exciting players up front in Merveille Kanjinga, Sakina Karchaoui and Romée Leuchter, so will look to take advantage of that.
Though Real Madrid, Benfica, Paris FC and Manchester United often create a lot domestically, they will have to be more defensive in Europe if they are to survive.
There really are only three types of mascot: the anthropomorphic animals, the real animals and then the entirely weird. It’s just a shame that West Brom’s “Boiler Man” or Partick Thistle’s “Kingsley” will never grace the UWCL stage.
Arsenal: Gunnersaurus Rex. A 7-foot-tall, green dinosaur is the mascot for a team called “The Gunners” with no paleontological link at all. What more could you want?
Manchester United: Fred the Red. The club’s nickname is the Red Devils, so that’s easy. Why he’s called Fred is anyone’s guess, but it’s certainly not after the Brazilian midfielder who played for the men’s team from 2018 to 2023.
Chelsea: Stamford The Lion and Bridget The Lioness. A bipedal lion and lioness couple, think Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift but with longer hair. And, of course, the names come from a melding of Stamford Bridge, where the men’s team plays all its home games. Kings and Meadow didn’t have the same ring to them.
Barcelona. Cat. A large yellow wildcat, it is gender neutral and made its debut as part of the Spanish club’s 125th anniversary in 2024.
Bayern Munich: Berni. A brown bear, Berni has been on the sideline since 2004, when he replaced former mascot Bazi, and had a bit of a makeover in August 2022 when he was revealed to have a much slimmer physique. And this was years before Ozempic.
OL Lyonnes: Lyou. A lion for OL Lyonnes. It doesn’t get much simpler.
Juventus: Jay Zebra. For a team that plays in black and white, there was really only one choice when it picked a mascot in 2015. And it wasn’t a badger. Jay even got his own children’s TV show, but it wasn’t very well reviewed by The Guardian.
Wolfsburg: Wölfi. A wolf for Wolfsburg, pretty simple.
Paris Saint-Germain: Germain le Lynx. Evidently PSG chose a lynx because lynxes are symbols of strength and power. But there’s something vacant in his eyes that gives us the creeps.
Roma: Romolo and Romina. A male and female wolf pair, which comes from the founding myth of Rome. But Romolo seems to be angry about something, while Romina just looks all doe-eyed.
Paris FC: Girafel. A giant blue giraffe. Presumably something tall to symbolize the Eiffel Tower?
Twente: Rossie. A white horse, and a reference to the Saxon steed that adorns the coat of arms of the province of Twente.
St. Polten: Lupo. A black and white wolf, he looks a bit like Poochie from “The Simpsons” with his backward baseball cap.
OH Leuven: Lionel the Chipmunk. Not a clue why it’s a chipmunk, or called Lionel. Not one single clue.
Benfica: Águia Vitória. OK, now we’re talking. How can an opponent not be intimidated when a bald eagle soars over the crowd and lands on the club badge each week?
But, the Portuguese club has a human dressed up as an eagle, too.
Real Madrid: There’s a general club association with a bear, but the Spanish giants aren’t bothered about having one as a mascot.
“The Avengers” – OL Lyonnes. The original superteam. OL are now getting together a collection of the best and bravest players in the world, but *spoiler* some won’t make it (on to the pitch).
“Everything Everywhere All At Once” – Arsenal. The film juggles multiple universes and storylines, and the UWCL winners did much the same last season with a lot of resilience and drama.
“The Matrix” – Barcelona. It might be a passing matrix, but if you watch them move the ball around enough, then you’ll start to see code forming. They don’t just pass the ball; they bend it like Neo and Trinity.
“The Wolf of Wall Street” – Chelsea. Big money, big deals, big ambitions. The Blues are endlessly successful, ruthless in their pursuit of glory and full of drama, swagger and spectacle.
“John Wick” – Wolfsburg. With a reputation for resilience, the She Wolves are not the loudest these days, but they definitely are still dangerous and ruthless when they need to be. Just don’t touch that dog.
“Moulin Rouge” – Paris Saint-Germain. With a Parisian setting, there’s plenty of spectacle, passion and heartbreak on show.
“Gladiator” – Roma. A story set in Rome and all about heart, resilience and fighting against stronger empires.
“Spider-Man” – Man United. Like Peter Parker swinging wildly through a city he’s still figuring out, United aren’t there yet. They might be out of their depth, but with great power comes great responsibility.
“300” – Everyone else. This season’s UWCL might feel a bit like the Battle of Thermopylae for many of the smaller teams. Bravery is a must for the minnows as they take on the massive armies of the elite teams. And *spoiler* it probably won’t end well for them.
Taylor Swift – OL Lyonnes. Taylor might just have namechecked Real Madrid in her latest song “Wi$h Li$t,” but like the U.S. superstar, OL Lyonnes have adapted through the years, shifting styles and tactics but always staying at the top and dominating the stage. They’re just coming off a bad breakup (having not made the UWCL final in two years), so expect a killer album to follow.
Beyoncé – Barcelona. It was tempting to go with classical music, but Beyoncé’s vocal precision and stage presence reflect Barça’s flawless tiki-taka, technical mastery and control. They are both royalty in their fields.
Coldplay – Chelsea. A modern powerhouse, the Blues command respect worldwide and are a money-making machine. Like Chris Martin & Co., they have grown into the role and are now a dominant, polished and world-class group.
Lainey Wilson – Arsenal. One of the pioneers in women’s football in England, Arsenal are not scared to get their hands dirty with hard work and resilience, and Wilson’s brand of country music is all about heartfelt grit and stories told with passion.
AC/DC – Bayern Munich. The German giants are like one of the most influential rock bands worldwide, as they have a huge following, unpredictability and fierce passion.
Metallica – Real Madrid. An enormous brand, with history, intensity and expectation behind it.
The White Stripes – Wolfsburg. Minimalist, efficient, but they can leave a lasting impact with some power chords.
Lady Gaga – Paris Saint-Germain. With flair, glamour and showmanship, there is always something theatrical about the French side.