The first leg of the tie takes place away from home on 12/13 September, with the return match to be played a fortnight later, on 26/27 September.

Sarajevo were ranked 24th out of the 32 teams taking part and they booked their spot in the competition proper after topping a four-team qualifying group, winning all three of their matches.



They secured their 16th domestic championship on the bounce in 2017/18, taking the title by 24 points after failing to win only one of their 20 matches.

Several of our England internationals, plus Wales captain Sophie Ingle, will have come against members of the Sarajevo squad – including Amira Spahic, who captains her national team – as the two countries are in the same World Cup qualification group as Bosnia and Herzegovina.



Fran Kirby was on target from the penalty spot in a 4-0 victory for the Lionesses last November, which was followed by a 2-0 win in April.



Emma Hayes’ squad are taking part in European competition for the fourth successive year and the goal this season is to go one better than our previous run, which ended at the semi-final stage at the hands of Wolfsburg.



That was our third successive exit at the hands of Germany’s top club, although on this occasion it came after our best ever run in the competition, following memorable victories over Bayern Munich, Rosengard and Montpellier.



Reaching the last four ensured our coefficient increased sufficiently to take us up to ninth place in the rankings, thus ensuring we were seeded for the first time at this stage of the competition.

This season’s final takes place at the Ferencvaros Stadium in Budapest, Hungary, on Saturday 18 May 2019.

