Vidarsdóttir perks up Potsdam for Rossiyanka

Three times Margrét Lára Vidarsdóttir has finished top scorer for the season in the European women's club competition but she has never progressed beyond the quarter-finals – something she can put right over the next week.

The Iceland striker – whose only previous last-eight appearance, with Valur Reykjavík, ended in a 19-2 aggregate defeat by 1. FFC Turbine Potsdam in 2005/06 – joined Potsdam over the winter after a spell in Sweden with Linköpings FC and Kristianstads DFF. On Wednesday her new team welcome FC Rossiyanka for the first leg of their quarter-final in the UEFA Women's Champions League, a competition Potsdam won in 2010 and were runners-up in a year later.

"It's going to be a really hard game for us," Vidarsdóttir, signed as a replacement for Anja Mittag, told UEFA.com. "Rossiyanka [have] many, many good players – they got in three, four players now, just after the winter break. So it's going to be hard for us in Potsdam. But we also have a good team, we have a really good team, and if we focus on ourselves and play our game that we are really good at, then I think we will win."

The 25-year-old is aware that moving to the two-time European champions and reigning German title holders has given her every chance of experiencing success. "They know what they're doing there, they've done it before, so of course it's going to help the team," said Vidarsdóttir, who has arrived alongside American defender Alexandra Singer. "But we have a lot of new players that have never won this title and really want to win it, and that's going to help the team as well."

If Potsdam can get past Rossiyanka and a potential semi-final with holders Olympique Lyonnais, they will play in the decider at Munich's Olympiastadion. "It would be a dream come true for everyone, and every player wants to play in a final like this," Vidarsdóttir said. "That is the picture I have in my head before I go to sleep every night and before these games – of course you want to play this game in front of many people."

Whereas Potsdam have resumed their domestic campaign with two draws and a win to stay top in Germany, the Russian Women's Premier Division remains on its winter break with Rossiyanka seven points clear. They now have a new coach in ex-sporting director Farid Benstiti – who led Lyon in their 2010 final loss to Potsdam and also trains the Russian national side – and have signed players including Brazil defender Ester and North American duo Kia McNeill and Leigh Ann Robinson, while midfielder Elena Morozova has left.

Rossiyanka have had training camps in Cyprus, Russia, Spain and France, and Benstiti said: "I hope we will be able to reach our goal, which is to win the UEFA Women's Champions League, with these strong foreign players we managed to bring in. When you have five or six top-class players who perfectly fit your philosophy of football, any task is possible."