Key events
20 min Uka clips Buchanan’s heels and for a second it looks like she’s in, but as the ball runs away, the whistle goes.
19 min Bad news for Chelsea: Keira Walsh is going off injured. It’s not clear what’s up butm as Emma Burn points out, no one’s asking her what the matter is, which suggests a pre-existing issue. Lexi Potter comes on.
18 min A ball from Nusken into Malard, who turns around the corner and down the line for Thompson, who wins the race to it, feints inside then nips outside, lovely play … but there’s no one in the box attacking her cross. Still, she looks dangerous.
17 min The goal came just as Chelsea were finding space between the lines, but Vienna look like they might have one in them too; I’m just not sure they’ll be able to refrain from conceding another while they seek it.
16 min McCabe goes near post again, and this time the ball is bundled behind for a goalkick.
15 min Now Chelsea win a corner, McCabe delivering to the front post, where Pal does just enough to flap behind for another.
14 min Vienna come straight back – they’re looking to attack whenever possible – and win a corner, which picks out Schiechtl at the back of the box. Her header isn’t bad, but it’s loopy and passes just wide and just high of the far angle.
WHAT A GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Austria Vienna (Kaptain 12)
Baltmore drives at the Vienna defences and punches square to Malard; Schiechtl slides in to disburse a solid challenge. But the ball breaks loose to Kaptein, 22 yards out, just right of centre, and she controls a glorious rising finish, snapping foot under ball with no follow-through, that shrieks in, off the bar.
11 min Vienna will be relatively happ…
9 min Chelsea probe, then Buurman decides to gambol forward … before a poor touch cedes possession. That’s very careless.
7 min It’s a bit slow from Chelsea so far, Peng seeking to bait the press by exchanging passes with Buchanan. It doesn’t work, though, the ball again given away cheaply, except i kind of does because when Vienna spring, Chelsea counter on them, Thompson bouncing down the right and cutting back for Kaptein, who can’t quite sort her feet out, the tame sidefooted finish straight at Pal.
5 min But then Walsh gives it away and Vienna spring, Uka shooting from distance … straight at Peng.
4 min Vienna attack down the right and Potzl wins a corner off Walsh … but the delivery is poor and Chelsea being the ball away.
3 min Chelsea knock it about, while Vienna sit in shape, engaging once the ball comes into their half. But McCabe still finds Nusken between the lines pretty easily, but the subsequent pass is poor.
2 min “My son and I are on our way home from watching our beloved Servette come face to face with the crushing reality of football at the top table, writes Jez Smith. “Anyway, we reckon we found the person with most boring job in football: watching the empty seats at the match.”
Maybe he couldn’t face any more. But I’m also sure watching the seats is more fun than watching Louis van Gaal’s Man United.
1 min And away we go!
…we’re almost ready…
Out come our teams…
So where is the game? I imagine Vienna will defend deep and in numbers – with five strung out across the back, they’ll be hard to get around or through. So Chelsea will, I think, look to move the ball quickly and hit big switches, with Nusken and Walsh looking to thread Malard through, and Kaptein making third-person runs.
Bompastor talks about her team needing to be more ruthless, citing a lack thereof even before she became manager. She wants her team to be focused in the big moments, and that’s about it.
FULL-TIME SCORES
Leuven 0-0 Roma
Servette 0-8 Lyon
Here comes the pen … and Pandini hits the post! Justice is served!
In Leuven, Roma have just been awarded a penalty that’s an absolute nonsense, the ball headed back into the arm of a player a yard or two away and looking in the opposite direction. “Shitty” is the verdict of whichever Van Dongen twin said it.
In the studio, Tyra Mills is wearing a trackie that looks like the last word in comfort. Would wear.
Malard, the summer signing from Man United, scored off the bench at the weekend, and I’m looking forward to seeing how she does tonight. With Beevor-Jones soon to be fit, there’s competition for her place, so this is a chance for her to assert herself.
I’m not sure we’ll see Chelsea play 3-5-2 that often this season. It makes sense tonight because Vienna are playing it and, if teams match up, the better one tends to win; it also make sense given the players Sonia Bompastor has available.
Against Birmingham at the weekend, Chelsea set up in a 3-4-3 and there are three changes made to that XI: in net, Livia Peng replaces Hannah Hampton; at the back, Katie McCabe is on for Lucy Bronze; and up front, Melvine Malard comes in, with Wieke Kaptein dropping into midfield and Lexi Potter dropping to the bench.
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.
Teams!
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)
Preamble
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.
Kick-off: 8pm BST