Women's International Champions Cup: Caroline Graham Hansen previews Barcelona's 'very different style'

Two NWSL clubs and two European teams will compete for the WICC trophy in Portland next week

The Women's International Champions Cup is on the horizon with the tournament set to kick off Wednesday, Aug. 18 in Portland, Oregon. Four of the world's best clubs will go head to head for the WICC title, with Portland Thorns FC and Houston Dash representing the National Women's Soccer league, and FC Barcelona and Olympique Lyon representing the best of Europe. 

Full rosters have been announced for the upcoming tournament as the Olympics have concluded. A total of 16 players, including four Canadian gold medalists in Christine Sinclair, Nichelle Prince, Sofia Schmidt, and Allysha Chapman, recently represented their nations at the Tokyo Games. 

All the clubs are coming off of successful seasons and tournaments, with FC Barcelona entering the tournament as UEFA Champions League title holders. Barcelona forward Caroline Graham Hansen previewed the event, noting the National Women's Soccer League as a physical and fast league.

"Everybody's so fit, so fast, [it's] forward football," said the Norway international. "It's always a lot of transition in the games, which is fun to watch, and a lot of high intensity in the games. You have to be able to both attack and defend well 1-v-1, because if not, you're gonna be left alone because of all the transitioning games in between.

"A lot of things happening during a game that maybe it's different from the European style of player, where more teams are being more tactical, in a way of maybe trying to control the game where the Americans go more power, and create a lot of chances."

Hansen is eager to visit the United States for the first time and compete in the WICC tournament. Barcelona face Lyon in their first WICC match before squaring off against one of the NWSL sides in either the championship or third-place game on Aug. 21.

"Everyone looks to the USA for a certain reason, because the national team has been the world's best for so many years from a women's side and it's a pleasure to go there and then meet up with the soccer culture in the USA," Hansen said. "I think that's really the most fun part, to experience American culture around our game. I have never been there myself. So, I think for me personally it's to see how many are there with the fans and everything. And it's always a pleasure to play games against the best teams and the best players. So it's nice for us to have that in our preseason."

The WICC tournament will give American women's soccer fans an opportunity to witness top-flight European clubs, and Hansen hopes to give fans a glimpse of Barcelona's signature possession-based style of play.

"We want to keep the ball. We want to use the ball in our defense, and, as well as our offense," Hansen said. "So our tactic is to keep the ball as much as possible because then they can't attack and we've also have the ability to control the game and have more possibilities to score goals. So, we're maybe not the most physical team in terms of size, but we have a lot of very technical and tactically very smart players on the field so it will be a very different style of play that we'll be [showing] the American fans and teams."