UWCL: OH Leuven will ‘give everything’ against Roma as they shake the newcomer status

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·23 September 2026

UWCL: OH Leuven will ‘give everything’ against Roma as they shake the newcomer status

OH Leuven open the league phase of the UEFA Women’s Champions League for the second successive season at home to Italian champions Roma on Wednesday, with captain Julie Biesmans saying a young and much-changed squad is taking the competition ‘game by game’ and under ‘no pressure’.

Leuven are no longer European newcomers. They became the first Belgian side to reach the UWCL league phase last season, and this summer qualified again through three rounds. They beat TSC Bačka Topola 4-0, edged Fenerbahçe on penalties, and eliminated Polish champions Czarni Sosnowiec 6-2 on aggregate.

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Roma are familiar opponents too, after the sides drew 1-1 in last season’s UWCL league phase.

They return, though, with a squad reshaped by their own success. Four established first team players left over the summer — centre-backs Linde Veefkind and Zenia Mertens, midfielder Sára Pusztai and forward Aurélie Reynders.

Biesmans treated the turnover as the price of doing well rather than a setback. She pointed to the academy now filling the gaps in a group averaging around 20 years old.

“One of the strong points of Leuven has always been that there is a lot of good youth,” she said. “A lot of strong players left, and that’s also the negative side of doing something good.” Embed from Getty Images

No pressure, or a different kind of it

Biesmans returned several times to the idea that Leuven carry no expectation into the competition. The approach, she said, has not changed from a year ago.

“For us, there is no pressure of having to prove something,” she said. “It’s game by game.”

A second qualification has not made the achievement feel routine.

“Maybe it feels a bit more normal now because it’s the second time, but really it’s not normal,” she said, noting that few outside the club expected them to reach the league phase either year.

That framing carries a quiet complication. A side that has qualified for the league phase twice in succession is no longer an unknown quantity. The summer departures are also a reminder of how quickly success can reshape a squad.

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For Biesmans, the value of experience is less about surprise now than about composure. As one of the squad’s most experienced players, she described her role in terms of steadiness rather than volume.

“I’m not the one who shouts the loudest,” she said. “I try to stay calm, and I hope the other players are able to stay calm too.”

Roma provide an immediate test

Roma offer an early measure of how far the rebuilt Leuven side has settled.

The Italian champions have changes of their own under new head coach Gianpiero Piovani and arrive in Leuven days after losing the Serie A Women’s Cup final to Juventus on penalties. Biesmans, though, was reluctant to draw comfort from either that setback or last season’s 1-1 draw.

“Roma is a very strong team,” she said. “They had some changes, but it’s still a very good opponent. We’ll give everything to make it as difficult as possible for them.”

Asked how much of Leuven’s recent goalscoring form could carry into the tie, Biesmans was measured.

“Scoring goals gives some confidence,” she said. “But it will be another game, another level. Hopefully we can finish the chances we get against Roma as well.”

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Pressed on where, specifically, Leuven might trouble the Italians, she declined, and did so with a smile.

“I don’t want to give too much, because maybe there’s someone listening and they already know what we’re doing,” she said. “We saw some videos, so we know where we can hurt them. But I want to keep that for ourselves.”

It was the one question of the afternoon she would not answer, which was revealing in itself. Whatever Leuven have identified in Roma, Biesmans was not prepared to give it away.

A wider stake

Leuven’s presence carries significance beyond their own results in a country with relatively few professional women’s clubs.

Biesmans said their continued qualification was already changing what young Belgian players believed was possible, and that visibility mattered as much as any single result.

“Little girls now start playing with the idea that maybe one day they can play in the Champions League,” she said, adding that she hoped more Belgian sides would follow into Europe.

For now, the club sits in a familiar position — good enough to attract attention to its players and good enough to rebuild when they leave.

The 1-1 draw with Roma last season showed the level is within reach. Wednesday at Den Dreef will begin to show whether a team that keeps rebuilding can, once more, make it look like home.

Find out where to watch the UEFA Women’s Champions League.