MADRID, 18 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Real Madrid women’s team will be looking to secure a place in the Champions League group stage in the first leg of the qualifying match against Sporting Club de Portugal, which will be played this Thursday at 17:00 at the Aurelio Pereira stadium, and in which the white team will try to get a favourable result for the return leg at home next week.
The team managed by Alberto Toril will be looking for its fourth consecutive qualification for the group stage of the European competition, having to overcome the qualifying round again as in the previous three. To do so, they will have to eliminate the second-placed team in the Portuguese league, which has already made it through the first round, beating Icelandic Breidabilik and German Eintracht Frankfurt, as a sign of its potential, and which won the Portuguese Super Cup against Benfica.
It will be a duel between two teams that have won all their matches at the start of the season. The Whites won 0-5 in their debut against Espanyol, and 0-3 against Betis in their second match, and they currently occupy the top position in the Liga F after their good performance in both matches.
In these matches, their new signings have been able to show a high level, such as the French centre-back Maëlle Lakrar or the German midfielder Melanie Leupolz, as well as the Scottish attacking midfielder Caroline Weir, who has returned in a great version after a year out due to a knee injury.
For this match, the Cordoba coach will continue to be without Linda Caicedo, who has already finished her participation in the U-20 World Cup in Colombia, but has not yet joined the group. The rest of the squad will be at his disposal for this match.
Facing the whites will be the current leader of the Portuguese league, with two wins in two games after winning 3-0 against Estoril and 1-3 against Famaliçao, which warns of the danger of a team that has in its ranks the Spanish Brenda Pérez as one of its main threats, in her fourth season at the Lisbon club.
The team led by Mariana Cabral has several important players who have been capped by Portugal, such as captain Ana Borges, who is the player who has worn the Portuguese national team shirt the most times, or veteran Cláudia Neto, together with the skilled winger Diana Silva, who has scored almost 150 goals in 200 games for the Portuguese club.