Chelsea vs. Austria Wien, Women’s Champions League: Preview, team news, how to watch

Chelsea Women begin their UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage journey with a home match against Austria Wien. The ÖFB Frauen Bundesliga champions will be eager to show they can match our efforts tonight, and we ought to shatter their hopes as they try to do so.

Date / Time: Wednesday, September 23, 2026, 20.00 BST; 3pm EDT
Venue: Plough Lane, Wimbledon, UK
Referee: Miriama Bockova (SVK)
Forecast: Clear sky and light winds

On TV: none (UK); CBS Sports Network (USA); elsewhere
Streaming: Disney+ (UK); ESPN+, fuboTV, Paramount+ (USA)

Chelsea team news: It was another day of domination not turning into the goals we needed to really feel safe. But once Melvine Malard scored our second goal against Birmingham in the second half last Saturday, we were finally allowed to breathe.

The side that has been hard hit by injuries very early on in this season finally has something to look for. Head coach Sonia Bompastor was happy to announce in her last press conference that captain Erin Cuthbert, as well as Aggie Beever-Jones and Manaka Matsukubo, are back in training. However Lauren James, who was absent from the 2-0 win over Birmingham last weekend, won’t take the pitch today as they don’t want to take risks ahead of our Stamford Bridge clash with Arsenal on Sunday.

Austria Wien team news: The violet-and-white club broke St. Pölten’s complete domination of the Austrian league since 2014 and won the competition for the first time in their history. They had to beat Hajduk Split, Farul Constanța and Brann Kvinner to reach the group stage.

Unlike Chelsea their injury slate has been quite clean. Their only worry is defender Yvonne Weilharter, who went off injured in a league match against LASK last month.

Previously: First time in history we meet Austria Wien. However we did beat their rivals, St. Pölten, pretty handily last season.