{"id":11154,"date":"2025-07-28T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/?p=11154"},"modified":"2025-07-28T15:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T14:48:14","slug":"iain-darbyshire-cardiff-city-better-prepared-than-ever-for-champions-league-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/news\/iain-darbyshire-cardiff-city-better-prepared-than-ever-for-champions-league-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Iain Darbyshire: Cardiff City better prepared than ever for Champions League campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Iain Darbyshire says that Cardiff City are ‘in a really good place’ ahead of their UEFA Women’s Champions League campaign. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bluebirds, competing in Europe for the third consecutive season, travel to the Republic of Ireland on Wednesday to play Athlone Town in the semi-final of the first qualifying round. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a good side,” Darbyshire said of the reigning League of Ireland Women’s Premier Division champions. “They\u2019re mid-season so it\u2019s going to be an interesting test for us to make sure we\u2019re up to speed and we\u2019re as free flowing as we want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy the looks of things, they look like they\u2019re going to be very good hosts and we\u2019re excited for the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fairly local game which is nice. Players can bring their friends and families across and make the game have a more homely feel to it, which we think will help us. We\u2019re just all looking forward to the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more<\/a>

Cardiff City v Athlone Town<\/h2>

All you need to know ahead of European clash<\/p>

Read more<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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City have dominated Welsh football in recent years under Darbyshire’s guidance, with the pinnacle being their domestic treble win in 2023\/24. The Bluebirds have won the Genero Adran Premier title three years in a row – going unbeaten in 2022\/23 – and have lifted the Bute Energy Welsh Cup in each of the last four seasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Cardiff will be hoping for even more domestic silverware in the upcoming campaign, Darbyshire is keen for his side to make an impact on the European stage this summer after four defeats in the last two years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to win a game in the Champions League,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is the next step for us. We\u2019re not going there to just make the numbers up; we need to do this as a group and overcome the hurdles that we\u2019ve had over previous years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe game changes so quickly, especially the women\u2019s game. The first couple of years in the Champions League were a steep learning curve for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe feel now we\u2019re in a much better place. The group has been together for over a year, and we\u2019re feeling we can have a really positive week when we go to Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cardiff City have won three successive Genero Adran Premier titles under Derbyshire’s leadership<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With the majority of the squad retained for the new season – Molly Kehoe and Eliza Collie have been the only key departures – and the additions of Helen Evans and Maddison Perrott, there is growing optimism that this could be a turning point in City\u2019s European journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year we had so many new faces. It was a really difficult challenge for us with the turnover of players we had in the summer,\u201d Darbyshire reflected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut this season we\u2019ve managed to keep 90% of the squad together and have added a couple of talented players in as well, in positions we\u2019ve needed to strengthen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt now puts us in a really good place. It means the relationships between the players and staff are there already, can be built upon, and puts us all in a good position to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bluebirds\u2019 journey under Darbyshire over the last five years has been defined by quality, ambition, and steady growth – one that he believes has been down the support of the club off the pitch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Darbyshire has built a strong and successful squad in his five years in charge <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur success over the years has been down to the structure,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen I came in, there were a lot of things I didn\u2019t agree with \u2014 in terms of how the team was set up, players paying to play football \u2014 it was about steadily growing with the support of the football club and raising awareness with our fans and domestic football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince then, it\u2019s been about raising the standards of everyone each year and not resting on our laurels that we have been successful. We want to keep being successful and want to set ourselves even bigger and better targets as a club.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this year’s UEFA Women’s Champions League first qualifying round brought forward from its regular early September slot, there has been more pressure than usual for Cardiff to build match fitness and cohesion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After facing several strong tests in pre-season against sides from the English pyramid, Darbyshire hopes the progress his side have made will pay dividends in their European campaign.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe summer has been in the lead-up to Europe,\u201d he added. \u201cWith the games starting in July, it\u2019s at least a month earlier than we\u2019re used to, so it\u2019s been busy and about putting a squad together from the get-go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving a good six weeks before the Champions League \u2014 it\u2019s going really well so far.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iain Darbyshire says that Cardiff City are ‘in a really good place’ ahead of this summer’s UEFA Women’s Champions League campaign. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":11159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"ftr_img_focal":{"x":0.54,"y":0.25},"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"class_list":["post-11154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adran-premier"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11163,"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11154\/revisions\/11163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faw.cymru\/adran-leagues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}