UEFA Women's Club Competitions

* Some streaks end. Aktobe claims their first Kazakhstan championship. BIIK Shymkent's streak of 12 straight titles and UWCL appearances ends.
* KI (Faroe) and Glentoran (N Ireland) secure titles on the last day
* Valerenga 2-4 Brann gives Brann a 7-point cushion with 4 to go in Norway

This weekend in women's football:
* Dinamo Minsk 2-1 Mura sends the Slovenian side into the #UWEC proper
* Some streaks go on. Gintra beats TransInvest 5-0 to claim another Lithuanian title, remaining one of three teams to compete in every #UWCL.

UEFA Women's Association rankings after #UWCL MD1:
Belgium replaces Austria in top ten
Switzerland ahead of Czechia for third entry
Denmark ahead of Scotland for second UWCL entry
Slovenia and Hungary ahead of Croatia and Serbia for second entry
Lithuania ahead of Greece for champ starting in R2

#UWCL standings after MD1: Spain leading the way. Looking ahead to MD2, ManU-AtlM is the only match between two teams that won, Benfica-Arsenal is the only match between two teams that lost, and the two MD1 draws exchange opponents!
(note: I haven't implemented tiebreakers beyond GF yet)

I wish CBS Golazo was showing something more competitive than St Polten - Atletico, but I'll take what I can get.

That's 17 goals in 2 1/2 #UWCL games for the three Spanish sides, and with Chelsea drawing and Arsenal losing, Spain opens a gap in the race for 2nd in the association rankings.
Full standings sometime tomorrow, as I have to sign off soon.

#UWCL Matchday 1B headlines:
* An impressive showing from Twente, holding Chelsea to a 1-1 draw
* Real Madrid rolls over Roma, 6-2
* Atletico keeps up the Spanish parade, leading St. Polten 4-0 at halftime
* Also at the half: Wolfsburg up 2-0 on PSG, Man U leads Valerenga 1-0

And then a cherry on top of the icing, 4-0!

#UWEC Qualifying Round 2A headlines:
* Inter Milan runs away from Vllaznia
* Mixed bag for Czechia and Denmark, each going 1-1-1.
* Switzerland shines, with a win and a draw against seeded opponents
* Minsk v PSV to be played as one neutral site game next week
* No home teams lose first leg

And just as last spring, we have Arsenal 1-2 Lyon. But there's no return leg for us to look forward to.

OHL makes a respectable debut, rallying from a halftime deficit to draw 2-2 with Paris FC (almost stealing the win at the last minute)
And Arsenal, who lost the first game in Q2, GS, QF, and SF last season but still claimed the title... does it again, as OL Lyonnes rallies for a 2-1 away win

Matchday 1A wrap-up:
Benfica scores the first #UWCL league phase goal, but Juventus's relentless attack is rewarded with a 2-1 win
Barcelona thoroughly establishes themselves as the team to beat with a 7-1 romp over Bayern

Five more matches tomorrow. In addition, four #UWEC first legs today, start times ranging from 17:00 to 20:45, with the other twelve tomorrow.

Today's the day, kicking off the first league phase in #UWCL history. The first match, at 18:45 CET, is Juventus-Benfica. Then, at 21:00, we have a pair of heavyweight bouts in Arsenal-Lyon and Barcelona-Bayern, plus Paris FC-OHL.

I don't think there is any coverage of this round by CBS/Paramount. It's possible there may be some once we hit the tournament proper, but I don't know if that contract is only for UWCL. Right now, club-run Youtube is probably the best bet.

Congratulations to Athlone Town, Republic of Ireland champions, and the first team to clinch a spot in the 2026-27 #UWCL qualifying rounds.

* Atletico Madrid is the only team to end with two P1 opponents.
* Arsenal, Lyon, and Bayern all end with their two P3 opponents.
* In October, PFC and Twente both play Chelsea and OHL.
* Juventus and Valerenga each have three early kickoffs. Paris SG is the only team with none.

The schedule for the #UWCL league phase has been announced. Full grid below and at uefawomen.neocities.org/2026main but here are some observations:
* No team starts with two P1 opponents.
* Chelsea, OH Leuven and Man United start with two P3 opponents.

This is new for this season. Up through last season, it was club's points + 20% of assoc coefficient. Now it is club's points OR 20% of assoc coefficient, whichever is greater.

Some quick #UWCL draw observations:
Benfica and OHL play almost the same schedule: vs Arsenal, at Barca, vs Twente, at PFC, and both play PSG and an Italian side.
No team has all 6 matches against opponents from the top six nations.
No team has drawn both Barcelona and Lyon

And here it is! The draw for the 2025-26 #UWCL league phase is complete, and here's the list of each team's opponents. Schedule will be revealed tomorrow, and the first matches are October 7 and 8.

Here's the 6 headline Pot 1 v Pot 1 matches for the #UWCL (dates to be determined):
Arsenal v Lyon
Barcelona v Bayern Munich
Lyon v Wolfsburg
Chelsea v Barcelona
Bayern Munich v Arsenal
Wolfsburg v Chelsea

That isn't one of the pairings UEFA has banned. I know there's unpleasantness, but I wonder if they figure there's a limit to how many pairings they can prohibit. Currently, Kosovo-Bosnia and Kosovo-Serbia are on the list, but nothing involving Albania.

Not to be overshadowed too much, the draw for Q2 of the UWEC is also today. 32 teams from 22 nations. Unlike the men's qualifying rounds, UEFA is not dividing the clubs into smaller groups, so except for country protection and Ukraine/Belarus prevention, any seeded team can play any unseeded team.

However, Pot 1 has additional restrictions because it has two English teams and two German teams. That leaves only 64 valid draws for the marquee matchups, and they're not equally likely. But I can say 28 of those 64 feature a Arsenal-Barcelona rematch, and 16 feature a Barcelona-Lyon clash.

Obviously, 6 can't host 6, so no number can stay in the same place. This means we are down to 265 "derangements" of 1-6. But a permutation like 346215 would mean 2 hosts 4 and 4 hosts 2, and that doesn't work. Manually removing these leaves 160 options.

Here's some math about the draw, just for fun. You can think of determining the pairings within a pot as permuting the numbers 1-6 to say who each team hosts. For instance, 352146 would mean 1 hosts 3, 2 hosts 5, etc. There are 720 ways to permute 1-6, but most are no good.

Pot 1 - Arsenal, Barcelona, Lyon, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg Pot 2 - Paris St Germain, Real Madrid, Juventus, Benfica, Roma, St. Polten Pot 3 - Twente, Valerenga, Paris FC, Manchester United, Atletico Madrid, OH Leuven

Here are the pots for the #UWCL League Stage draw, six hours from now. The colors represent what round teams started their journey, with 5 teams having to fight through two rounds of qualifying. Each team will be assigned one home and one away opponent from each of the three pots.

us.women.soccerway.com/national/kaz... Aktobe leads by a point with four games left, but the H2H games have already happened and Aktobe has the easier schedule left.

Other nations whose UEFA campaigns ended this week are Rep of Ireland, Romania, Kazakhstan (which has fallen from 17th to 26th to 36/37th in just two seasons), Cyprus and Finland. Those last two each had two clubs go LL, meaning they earn 0 coefficient points.