A very happy Easter weekend of football to you all!
‘Freya’s Football Round-Up’ is back with more women’s football news and updates from across Europe and the world as this week we welcome the NWSL and brand new Canadian Pro-Soccer League, the NSL, into our round-up!
In another change from last week there are no Frauen Bundesliga or Premiére Ligue fixtures to cover as they moved from Easter weekend to midweek.
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– Women’s Super League (England)
– Women’s Championship, (England)
– Serie A Femminile, (Italy)
– Liga F (Spain)
– NWSL (North America)
– NSL (Canada)
Women’s Super League (England)
Matchday 19 of the Women’s Super League was the home to some surprising draws and huge victories at both ends of the table.
Wednesday 16th April:
Arsenal faced Leicester City and dominated in a 5-1 win at the Emirates ahead of their clash with Lyon in the UEFA Women’s Champions League.
First-half goals from Stina Blackstenius and a brace from Caitlin Foord, plus Beth Mead and a special goal from Victoria Pelova (her first since returning from her ACL) in the second half was more than enough to seal the victory.
Sandwiched in between Arsenal’s 4th and 5th goal, Leicester’s Yuka Momiki was able to find space on the edge of the box to get a consolation goal for the visitors.
Impressively, Arsenal have now scored at least four goals in seven successive WSL home matches and sit 6 points behind Chelsea in the league table.
Saturday 19th April:
7th place West Ham held 3rd place Manchester United to a goalless draw on Saturday while Everton’s Sara and Karen Holmgaard linked up to take points off an injury stricken Manchester City. This draw for Manchester City makes it increasingly unlikely they’ll be qualifying for Champions League next season.
The biggest result of the weekend, however, was a late victory for Aston Villa over Tottenham Hotspur. After losing a 2 goal lead, it was super sub Kirsty Hanson (who has now scored the winner twice in two games) who came off the bench to deliver a stoppage time goal to help Villa go 7 points clear of Crystal Palace in the relegation spot and increase their chances of survival this season.
Wednesday 23rd April:
Due to the Champions League fixtures, Chelsea vs Crystal Palace was moved midweek and a 4-0 victory for the home side (even through a red card card shown to Palace’s Swaby) keeps Palace firmly in the relegation spot.
Chelsea took the lead through Guro Reiten’s well-taken penalty just after the 20 minute mark, then Macário doubled their tally moments later. As the second half started, Swaby was shown a red card for denying a goalscoring opportunity before Macário once again found the back of the net for 3-0. Their fourth goal of the game was another special moment as Mia Fishel scored for the first time since she’s been back playing after her ACL injury.
WSL Champions League Qualifying Places: Top 3 clubs
Relegation spots : 1 club (to the Women’s Championship)
Women’s Championship (England)
Friday 19th April:
A struggling Southampton side faced a confident London City Lionesses as the visitors won 1-4 on Friday evening. The victory sees them retain the Championship top spot with only 2 points between them and second place Birmingham City after they also won their match against Durham on Sunday.
Sunday 20th April:
At the bottom of the table, Portsmouth took a vital point against Bristol City as they continue to edge away from the danger zone. Sheffield United, the team currently in the relegation spot, hosted Blackburn Rovers in an unremarkable goalless draw. As Portsmouth edge closer to Blackburn Rovers and Sheffield United remain on only 7 points, this three way relegation fight looks likely to end in Sheffield United dropping into tier 3 next season.
There are only two more games left of the season in the Championship with Birmingham City and London City Lionesses battling it out for promotion while Sheffield United look to pick up any points from their remaining fixtures against Southampton and Sunderland.
Promotion Places: 1 (to the WSL)
Relegation Spots: 1 (to Tier 3, either the Northern or Southern Premier Division)
Serie A Femminile (Italy)
This weekend the champions of Serie A were crowned with two matches still to go! A 2-0 win over AC Milan saw Juventus lead the top of the table by an incredible 10 points. This is the sixth time the bianconere have taken the title but have been beaten the last two years by Roma.
Roma, on the other hand haven’t performed as strongly this season but are looking likely to finish third and snap up that final Champions League qualifying spot.
In other record-breaking news, Inter Milan have qualified for the Champions League for the first time in their history! Currently sitting in second place, they are guaranteed a top three finish for this season.
At the other end of the table, in the relegation group or ‘poule salvezza’, a loss for Napoli against Lazio sees Napoli still only one point ahead of Sampdoria in the current relegation spot. Therefore the penultimate game of the season will be the decider as Napoli host Sampdoria on 27th April with everything to play for.
Champions League Qualifying places: Top 3 clubs
Relegation spots: 1 club (to Serie B)
Liga F (Spain)
Liga F have considerably more match days than other leagues in Europe and still have a further four games to play out of a huge 30 games in the season.
Fighting for the title, both Barcelona and Real Madrid beat their respective opponents (Sevilla and Real Betis) 5-1 over the weekend which means Barcelona keep their narrow 4 point lead at the top of the table.
At the other end of the table, the two teams currently facing relegation are Valencia and Real Betis who, unfortunately, both lost at the weekend.
However, all is not lost as it is still mathematically possible for both teams to escape the relegation zone. Both Deportivo and Levante Badalona (who are just above them in 13th and 14th place) have also been struggling for success and still have to face some tough competition in these final games.
Champions League Places: Top 3 clubs
Relegation spots: Bottom 2 clubs (to the Primera Federación)
NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League – North America)
The NWSL has only recently returned for their 2025 season and it is KC Current who currently top the league; the only team who are still unbeaten after 5 matches with their most recent victory coming in a 2-0 win against Houston Dash.
Gotham FC are also reaping the rewards from Esther González’ brilliant form at the moment as the Spanish striker is currently the top goal scorer of the league. Most recently, scoring a brace in Gotham’s 3-1 win over North Carolina Courage.
NC Courage interestingly are the only team still without a win in the campaign and sit bottom of the table with only 2 points. They will need all of their strength, however, as they come up against league leaders KC Current next weekend where they’ll be fighting for their first win.
NSL (Northern Super League – Canada)
The first ever Canadian women’s pro-soccer league kicked off this week with four of the six inaugural clubs competing to make history.
In the first game of the weekend, Saturday saw Vancouver Rise FC welcome Calgary Wild FC and it was none other than Canadian legend, Quinn, who converted a penalty for the only goal of the match; this goal also made it into the history books as the first ever NSL goal scored.
Sunday saw AFC Toronto welcome the Montreal Roses to a sold out stadium where nearly 15,000 fans were in attendance to watch this special moment in history. This game also saw just the one goal, this time from Canadian youth international, Tanya Boychuk, who opened the scoring within an incredible 2 minutes of the game starting.
Ottawa Rapids and Halifax Tides finally get their first taste of the league over the 26th/27th April with Halifax welcoming Calgary Wild and Ottawa hosting AFC Toronto. With the regular season running through until October, we can’t wait to see how the league unfolds in the coming months.
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