Barcelona will go for a UEFA Women’s Champions League three-peat this year. (Photo by David … [+]
After a memorable 2024, 2025 promises to be a year of more historic firsts and blockbuster tournaments in the world of women’s soccer.
The inaugural editions of official continental women’s club competitions organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) will draw to a close in the first half of 2025. The knockouts are all that remain as the group stages concluded last year.
In the AFC Women’s Champions League, eight teams are still standing with the quarterfinal draw yet to be held. Japanese champion Urawa Red Diamonds, the last winners of the invitational AFC Women’s Club Championship, has to be considered among the favorites, as do finalist Incheon Hyundai Steel Red Angels and Melbourne City. Besides them, Hồ Chí Minh City, Abu Dhabi Country Club, Iranian side Bam Khatoon, Wuhan Jiangda and Taichung Blue Whale will compete in the quarterfianls in March, while the final two rounds will take place in May.
Around the same time in the summer, the semifinals and finals of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup will decide the first North American club champion. Only American and Mexican sides have progressed to the semifinals, and they are neatly split. Tigres will take on the Portland Thorns, while Club América will face NJ/NY Gotham FC for a spot in the final.
With such continental club competitions scheduled in all other confederations as well, 2025 will be the first year ever that every continent has an official women’s club champion.
The Frauen Bundesliga, Germany’s top-flight women’s soccer league, has long been used to duopolies. 1. FFC Frankfurt and Turbine Potsdam established themselves as the dominant forces at the turn of the century, while Wolfsburg and Bayern Munich took over in the early 2010s. Those are the only four teams to have won the title since the 2000/01 season, but there might just be a new champion this year.
There is next to nothing to separate the top four at the midway stage of the season. Eintracht Frankfurt–the new guise of 1. FFC Frankfurt after a merger with the city’s premier men’s club–is currently leading the way on 29 points, only sitting above defending champion Bayern Munich on goal difference. Wolfsburg is following closely with just a one-point deficit, but the surprise package to watch out for is Bayer Leverkusen. New head coach Roberto Pätzold has led the team to within three points of the league leaders, and that gap could disappear if Die Werkself wins its game in hand.
With such fine margins at play, a thrilling title race is effectively guaranteed.
Only two teams have managed to win three consecutive UEFA Women’s Champions League titles in the tournament’s history, namely Wolfsburg (between 2013 and 2015) and Lyon (who won five in a row between 2016 and 2020). This year, two-time defending champion Barcelona will be looking to join the list.
Having only strengthened its squad last summer, the Spanish champion certainly looks likely to achieve that feat. However, it will have to navigate a tough knockout run again. Both Lyon and Wolfsburg could stand in its way, but perhaps the strongest challenger will be Chelsea. The English champion has won all but one match across all competitions under new head coach Sonia Bompastor, who has three UWCL winner’s medals from her playing and coaching days at Lyon. Manchester City–the only team to defeat Barcelona this season so far–and Bayern Munich will also be ones to watch.
As ever, the UEFA Women’s Champions League quarterfinals will be held in March, with the semifinals scheduled a month later. The final will be played in Lisbon in the last week of May.
Not long after the conclusion of the 2024/25 season, a host of interntional continental tournaments will fill up calenders for the summer.
The Women’s Euros will be the first tournament to kick off and it will run the longest as 16 teams will compete in Switzerland through the month of July. Defending champion England, world champion Spain and record champion Germany will be among the favorites for what promises to be a thrilling tournament.
Switzerland is all set to host the Women’s Euros this year. (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty … [+]
The 15th edition of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations will run simultaneously, having been delayed from its original scheduling in 2024. Morocco will host the tournament yet again as the Atlas Lionesses still look for their first title, but defending champion South Africa and record champion Nigeria are sure to put up tough challenges.
The 2025 Copa América Femenina will run from mid-July to the first week of August in Ecuador. The big story is whether anyone can stop the dominant force that is Brazil. The Seleção reached every single final in the tournament’s history and won all but one of them, so contenders such as Colombia and Argentina are in for an uphill battle.
Amidst all of these big champions, it would be unfair to forget the OFC Women’s Nations Cup. Fiji will host the tournament for two weeks starting in early July.
European women’s soccer fans have a lot of reasons to be excited for 2025, and the inaugural edition of the UEFA Women’s Europa Cup should be high up in the list. Calls for a secondary women’s continental club competition have finally been answered, so teams that finish outside the top spots in major leagues as well as champions from relatively less strong nations will have the opportunity to compete for silverware.
The format of the competition should prove just as interesting. After two qualifying rounds, the 16 teams that remain standing will head straight into two-legged knockouts, with the final also set to be played in a home-and-away format! So, an underdog story could well be on the cards in the new competition.
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