Wolfsburg and Paris Saint Germain drew 1-1 at the Volkswagen Arena. The clash sent the Wolves to the semi-finals of the UEFA Women's Champions League for the eighth time in its history.
Alexandra Popp received a beautiful pass from Felicitas Rauch to open the scoring for Wolfsburg, who already had a goal lead in the first leg.
Kadidiatou Diani equalized for PSG, after having a goal annulled for offside, and was present in the attack until she injured her shoulder and was replaced at half-time.
Wolfsburg had great chances to extend their advantage, with Alex Popp and Jill Roord, but they wasted. PSG, on the other hand, tried to score the second goal until the last minute to take it to extra time.
Thus, Wolfsburg and Arsenal face each other in the semifinals of the European tournament and the Wolves will need some adjustments to reach the final.
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Kadidiatou Diani is a key player for PSG
As much as she is playing out of her position, the French player is a protagonist inside the area, having scored an annulled goal and PSG's equalizer.
Despite the offsides, she wins duels on the ground and in the air and is accurate with passes and crosses. With today's goal, she scored seven goals in four matches and a total of 26 attempts.
She injured her shoulder towards the end of the first half and was substituted at halftime. After that, PSG's game started to be played on the wings, ignoring the space in the area previously occupied by Diani.
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PSG battled until the end
The match was well-balanced, as was the score. The similarity in ball possession, number of shots, number of corners, distance covered and passes made.
However, even with that equality, Wolfsburg demonstrated its attack and requested a lot from the French defence, with highlights for Grace Geyoro and great defences by Sarah Bouhaddi.
With still hopes of qualifying, PSG bet on plays with the young Manssita Traoré and the Danish Amalie Vangsgaard. The final minutes were a lot of pressure from both players, but well disarmed by the defence.
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Ewa Pajor x Alex Popp
Coach Tommy Stroot preferred to use Alex Popp instead of Ewa Pajor as a centre forward in this second leg and the absence of the Polish player was greatly felt.
Even with Popp's goal, she had four other great chances wasted, one of them being off the post. Furthermore, this is the German's only goal in the competition, against Pajor's seven goals and two assists.
Pajor and Popp must play together, as they did in the first leg in France.
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Wolfsburg shows instability at this point in the season
Wolfsburg lost to Bayern München in a direct confrontation last weekend and left the Bundesliga leadership. In addition, they played a close game against PSG and did not convince.
The French team managed to arrive with speed through the wings for most of the game, having been quite offensive in the first minutes, with emphasis on Karchaoui, Lawrence and Diani.
It is worth remembering that the Wolves will face Arsenal in the semifinals of the competition, a team that has Frida Maanum, Caitlin Foord and Victoria Pelova, who can take advantage of these sides.
The team will have three more challenges (Werder Bremen, Bayern München and Duisburg) before the dates (April 22nd and May 1st) to carry out these adjustments.