Wolfsburg vs Arsenal Women's Champions League preview: Where to watch, kick-off time, starting line-ups

Wolfsburg and Arsenal meet in their UEFA Women's Champions League semi-final first leg on Sunday 23 April at VfL Wolfsburg Arena.

What do you need to know?

Wolfsburg, making their debut, got the better of Arsenal in the 2012/13 semi-finals on their way to the first of two titles. Until this season that was the Gunners' most recent appearance in the last four, not helped by also losing to Wolfsburg in the quarter-finals a year ago.

But Arsenal knocked out Bayern to ensure a return to the semis despite the long-term absences of Vivianne Miedema and Beth Mead, and an injury to Kim Little, who now is also out for the rest of the campaign. On top of that, Leah Williamson, taking over the captaincy (as well as a central midfield role) from Little, suffered a serious injury on Wednesday in the loss at Manchester United. Lina Hurtig and Caitlin Foord are also out but Steph Catley is now back.

Wolfsburg themselves are coming off a stunning 5-0 German Cup semi-final win at Bayern at the weekend in which they were missing Alex Popp, injured on international duty. Popp will not play and Lena Lattwein is definitely out until the end of the season with a broken collarbone, but Marina Hegering is back in contention for a place.

Former Arsenal players Jill Roord and Dominique Janssen are set to line up against their old club, while Gunners defender Noelle Maritz appeared more than 100 times for Wolfsburg.

Form guide

Wolfsburg
Last six games (most recent result first): WWWDLW
Last match: Duisburg 0-3 Wolfsburg, 19/04
Where they stand: 2nd in Frauen-Bundesliga, German Cup final

Arsenal
Last six games (most recent result first): LWWWLW
Last match: Manchester United 1-0 Arsenal, 19/04
Where they stand: 3rd in Women's Super League, League Cup winners

Starting line-ups

Wolfsburg: Frohms; Wilms, Hendrich, Janssen, Rauch; Oberdorf, Roord; Brand, Huth, Jónsdóttir; Pajor

Arsenal: Zinsberger; Maritz, Wubben-Moy, Beattie, Rafaelle; Pelova, Maanum, Wälti; McCabe, Blackstenius, Catley

View from the camps

Tommy Stroot, Wolfsburg coach: "[Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall] started the same season as me [appointed in 2021]. And we know that a team stabilises over time, that ideas stabilise. You can see that with the Londoners too. They now have several plans to solve things.

"And when you see what they did on the transfer market even in winter, then they have already compensated for a few injuries. Then you know what options they have. Last season they weren't as deep as they are now, although they can't use that depth because of injuries."

Jonas Eidevall, Arsenal coach: "They have a lot of power, a lot of speed and they have a lot of individual qualities that are very different from each other with the player types they have. It gives them variety in the way they attack but they also have different options from the bench in order to change or use different offensive tools.

"Definitely they have one of the best attacks in Europe so it will be a tough challenge for us. We have watched the game back from last year a little bit. They were very good against a very good Bayern team."

Where is the 2023 UEFA Women's Champions League final being played?

UEFA

Eindhoven's PSV Stadium will stage the 2023 UEFA Women's Champions League final at 16:00 CET on Saturday 3 June.

First opened in 1910, the 35,000-capacity PSV Stadium has a long history of hosting major matches, including the UEFA Cup finals of 1978 (second leg) and 2006, the second leg of the 1988 UEFA Super Cup and three games at UEFA EURO 2000.

On 6 April 2018, 30,238 fans at the home of PSV Eindhoven watched the Netherlands beat Northern Ireland on the way to the FIFA Women's World Cup, a record crowd for any UEFA-organised women's qualifier. On 1 June 2019, a then Dutch record women's football attendance of 30,640 saw the Netherlands face Australia in a friendly at the stadium.