The stage is set for the 2023/24 season of the UEFA Women’s Champions League (UWCL). The second qualifying round was full of top-class action, high drama and some shock results.

After the group-based format of Qualifying Round 1 (QR1), QR2 featured 12 two-legged ties split between the Champions Path and League Path, of which the former contained a number of domestic league winners while the latter mostly had teams that qualified through lower positions in the top leagues.

All the big ties were naturally in the league path, so the big stories came from it too.

Both the big headlines involved Parisian clubs. In the French capital, Paris Saint-Germain ended Manchester United’s debut UWCL campaign very early on. The tie hung in the balance after a 1-1 draw at Leigh Sports Village and followed a similar pattern as PSG took the lead in the first half and United equalized in the second, but the hosts then scored twice more to win 4-2 on aggregate.

The bigger story, however, concluded in Germany where last season’s finalists Wolfsburg were eliminated at the hands of Paris FC, who were back in Europe after a decade-long absence. Their qualification path has been as tough as any because they also had to overcome last season’s semifinalists Arsenal in QR1, so their return to the UWCL’s last 16 is thoroughly deserved.

For Wolfsburg, though, this marks the end of an 11-year streak of reaching the quarterfinals of the UWCL at the very least. Their defensive frailties were highlighted in the first leg which ended 3-3, while they struggled to break down a resolute Paris FC defense in the second leg.

Another very closely matched tie in the League Path was the one between FC Twente and BK Häcken. After a 2-2 draw in Sweden, Twente opened the scoring at home and looked on course for victory until a quickfire double from the visitors turned the game on its head just after the hour-mark. They held on fairly comfortably in the end.

Real Madrid perhaps did not manage to amass as big a first-leg lead as they would have liked, but a comfortable three-goal victory in Oslo saw them ease past Vålerenga with the aggregate score reading 5-1.

Eintracht Frankfurt had an even bigger lead from the first leg alone as they put five past Sparta Prague at home before going on to add three more in the second leg to make it 8-0 on aggregate.

The Champions Path generally tends to throw up uneven matchups due to the differences in levels between the various leagues across Europe, so there was absolutely no second-leg drama to report from these ties.

The only one that was really a contest after the first leg was Spartak Subotica’s tie against FC Rosengård, who won 2-1 in Serbia. They enjoyed a comfortable 5-1 second-leg victory to easily qualify, making this the first UWCL group stage that will include two Swedish teams.

The only other tie that ended with a margin of five goals or fewer was St. Pölten vs Valur, in which the former won the first leg in Iceland 4-0 so their home defeat by a lone goal did not mean much. The rest of the matchups ended in absolute blowouts.

Both Benfica and Slavia Prague scored 11-0 aggregate victories over Apollon Limassol and FCU Olimpia Cluj respectively, while Roma also enjoyed a bit of a goal-fest in their second leg against Ukrainian champions Vorskla to win 9-1 on aggregate.

Ajax’s six-goal first leg win made up most of their dominant 8-0 aggregate triumph over FC Zürich, while Norwegian side Brann enjoyed two comfortable wins in their 6-0 aggregate success over Glasgow City.

So, the pots have been set for the group stage draw, which will take place this Friday.