The competitive imbalance in women’s club soccer in Europe will be underscored this week in the final round of Champions League group-stage matches where little is on the line because of the dominance of the continent’s top teams.
The eight teams advancing to the quarterfinals have already secured their spots with one round remaining: Lyon and Wolfsburg from Group A; Chelsea and Real Madrid from Group B; Bayern Munich and Arsenal from Group C; and Manchester City and Barcelona from Group D.
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Chelsea's pleayers celebrate after Mayra Ramirez scored their side's third during the Women's Champions League group B match between Chelsea and FC Twente at the Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Zac Goodwin/PA via AP)
Wolfsburg's Sveindis Jonsdottir celebrates after scoring her fourth goal during the women's Champions League soccer match between VfL Wolfsburg and AS Roma at AOK Stadion in Wolfsburg, Germany, Wednesday Dec. 11, 2024. (Swen Pförtner/dpa via AP)
Chelsea's Eve Perisset, right, scores her side's sixth goal during the Women's Champions League group B soccer match at Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)
Manchester City's Lily Murphy, centre, celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during the women's Champions League Group D soccer match between Manchester City and ST. Poelten at the Manchester City Academy Stadium in Manchester, England, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)
Barcelona's Ewa Pajor, left, celebrates scoring during the Champions League group D women's soccer match between Hammarby IF and FC Barcelona at Stockholm Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday Dec. 12, 2024. (Jonas Ekströmer/TT via AP)
All are either established clubs in the women’s game — especially Lyon and Wolfsburg, the winners of nine of the 10 Champions League titles from 2011-2020 — or huge European clubs in men’s soccer who have started to really pour money and extra focus into their women’s teams in recent years. Madrid’s women’s team, for example, was only founded in 2020.
The only thing needing to be settled across Tuesday and Wednesday is which teams qualify in first place and which progress as group runners-up, though there might not be any huge benefit either way given the high standard of the teams going through.
The qualified teams play each other this week, with only Group A fully decided as Lyon is guaranteed to finish in first place with Wolfsburg second. The two meet in France on Tuesday.
In Group B on the same night, second-place Madrid hosts first-place Chelsea and can jump above the English team with a win courtesy of a superior goal difference.
On Wednesday, Arsenal hosts Bayern and is one point behind the visitors from Germany in Group C. Bayern just needs to avoid defeat to finish top. Also that night, Barcelona is at home to first-place Man City and must beat the English team by two goals or more to win Group D.
The lopsided results in the fifth round of games highlighted the gap between the so-called bigger and smaller clubs in the Champions League.
The eight teams advancing to the knockout stage all won their games, scoring a combined 33 goals and conceding a combined three. On the same night, Chelsea, Lyon and Wolfsburg each scored six goals.
Barcelona, the defending champion, has scored 23 goals in its five group games so far — including a 9-0 win over Hammarby and a 7-0 thrashing of St. Polten in its last two outings.
Of the teams in third or last place in their groups, only one — Roma — has more than three points.
The Champions League will expand next season to 18 teams in a single standings, with UEFA hoping for same uplift that the men’s Champions League has had since increasing to a 36-team league. Top teams like Man City, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain have struggled, maintaining a measure of suspense to the final games.
On Monday, UEFA will name the women's second-tier European competition that launches next season, part of the governing body's bid to raise standards.
The women’s game at international level is showing a similar imbalance — and that is demonstrated in the teams to have qualified for the 16-nation Women’s European Championship taking place in Switzerland in July.
In Monday’s draw for the tournament’s group stage, only one country is from eastern Europe: Poland.
AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Lausanne, Switzerland, contributed to this story.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Chelsea's pleayers celebrate after Mayra Ramirez scored their side's third during the Women's Champions League group B match between Chelsea and FC Twente at the Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Zac Goodwin/PA via AP)
Wolfsburg's Sveindis Jonsdottir celebrates after scoring her fourth goal during the women's Champions League soccer match between VfL Wolfsburg and AS Roma at AOK Stadion in Wolfsburg, Germany, Wednesday Dec. 11, 2024. (Swen Pförtner/dpa via AP)
Chelsea's Eve Perisset, right, scores her side's sixth goal during the Women's Champions League group B soccer match at Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)
Manchester City's Lily Murphy, centre, celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during the women's Champions League Group D soccer match between Manchester City and ST. Poelten at the Manchester City Academy Stadium in Manchester, England, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)
Barcelona's Ewa Pajor, left, celebrates scoring during the Champions League group D women's soccer match between Hammarby IF and FC Barcelona at Stockholm Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday Dec. 12, 2024. (Jonas Ekströmer/TT via AP)
Palestinian health officials said Monday the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 14th month, topped 45,000 people.
This comes as 52 dead arrived at hospitals across the bombed-out strip over the past 24 hours, including a family of four, in Gaza City overnight, according to Palestinian medics.
The Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7 last year when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel, killing some 1, 200 people and taking another 250 hostage. Israel responded with heavy bombardment and a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, a UK-based war monitor says Israeli airstrikes early Monday hit missile warehouses in Syria and called it the “most violent strikes” since 2012.
Israel has been pounding what it says are military sites in Syria after the dramatic collapse of President Bashar Assad’s rule, wiping out air defenses and most of the arsenal of the former Syrian army. Israeli troops have also seized a border buffer zone, sparking condemnation, with critics accusing Israel of violating the 1974 ceasefire and possibly exploiting the chaos in Syria for a land grab.
The Assad family’s rule, which lasted more than half a century, collapsed just over a week ago following a stunning rebel advance.
The new Syrian administration, led by the former insurgents who toppled Assad, has complained to the U.N. Security Council about the Israeli bombardment and incursions into Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. However, it has also said it does not want a military confrontation with Israel.
Here is the latest:
Health officials in the Gaza Strip say the death toll from the 14-month war between Israel and Hamas militants has reached 45,028 people.
The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It said more than half of the fatalities were women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The Health Ministry also said 106,962 have been wounded since the start of the war.
ANKARA, Turkey — A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said Monday the decision marked a “new stage in Israel’s goal of expanding its borders through occupation,” adding that Ankara was concerned that the move would harm efforts to establish peace and stability in Syria.
“The international community must show the necessary reaction to Israel and ensure that the illegal activities of (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s government come to an end,” the statement read.
Qatar also condemned the decision, calling it “a new episode in a series of Israeli aggressions on Syrian territories and a blatant violation of international law.”
The Israeli government approved Netanyahu’s plan on Sunday with the aim to encourage population growth in the area.
Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it, though the international community except for the U.S. regards it as occupied. Israeli figures show the remote territory is home to about 50,000 people, about half of them Jewish Israelis and the other half Arab Druze, many of whom still consider themselves Syrians.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — In central Gaza’s Nuseirat urban refugee camp, mourners carried Monday the body of Ahmad Baker Al-Louh, 39, a Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera, from the hospital through the streets. His blue bulletproof vest rested atop him.
Al-Louh was killed the day before in a strike on a point for Gaza’s civil defense agency and Al Jazeera said had been covering rescue operations of a family wounded in an earlier bombing when he was killed.
Sunday’s strike also killed three civil defense workers, including the local head of the agency, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The civil defense is Gaza’s main rescue agency and operates under the Hamas-run government.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The 10 included a family of four, Palestinian medics said Monday, as the Israel-Hamas war raged on for the 14th month in the Gaza Strip.
The strike late Sunday hit a house in Gaza City’s eastern Shijaiyah neighborhood, according to the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 10 people from under the rubble, including those of two parents and their two children, it said.
DAMASCUS, Syria — The U.S. embassy in Damascus advised Americans to leave Syria, saying the security situation there continues to be volatile and unpredictable with armed conflict and “terrorism throughout the country."
The embassy, which has been closed since 2012, posted a statement on X, warning U.S. citizens who were unable to leave the country to prepare “contingency plans for emergency situations.” It didn't give further details.
The statement also said that the U.S. government is unable to provide any routine or emergency consular services to U.S. citizens and those who need “emergency assistance to depart should contact the U.S. Embassy in the country they plan to enter.”
Sleeper cells of the Islamic State group have claimed responsibility for deadly attacks over the past months in different parts of Syria. Despite their defeat in March 2019, the extremists still pose a threat in the war-torn country.
DAMASCUS, Syria — The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, reported early Monday that Israeli airstrikes pounded missile warehouses and other former Syrian army sites along Syria’s coast in the “most violent strikes in the Syrian coast region since the beginning of the (Israeli) strikes in 2012.”
The Israeli military declined to comment on the strikes.
The observatory said that “violent explosions” were heard in the coastal city of Tartous “as a result of the successive strikes and the flying of ground-to-ground missiles from the warehouses.”
FILE - Israeli soldiers cross the security fence moving towards the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File )
An Israeli bulldozer maneuvers on the buffer zone near the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, viewed from the town of Majdal Shams, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
An Israeli armoured vehicle crosses the security fence moving towards the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
