It has been a bit off-kilter for quite some time now. On the one hand, in German women’s football there are constantly heard damn good feelings when the future is in view. European champions? Why not? On the other hand, after disappointments, there is loud alarm that things cannot go on like this any longer given the gap to other nations.
Yet the pendulum, as absurdly wild and fast as it was in the past week, has probably not swung fully to the other side yet. A darker impression than last Sunday could hardly have been conveyed by the German top division, as the match between 1. FC Köln and Bayer Leverkusen had to be abandoned after 41 minutes due to a failed floodlight mast. The list of things German professional women’s footballers lack is long. That light would even be counted among them would be something only a few would have imagined possible.
Fortunately, the day after one could already talk about the start of the Champions League, whose new format immediately made possible a particularly exquisite showdown between FC Barcelona and FC Bayern Munich. National coach Wück praised the German champions almost to the heavens.
The club had qualitatively caught up with the international top, could reach the semifinal, and then anything was possible. Bayern striker Klara Bühl also assured: “We are going there with a very, very good feeling …” That was quite understandable, as the team had not conceded a goal in five Bundesliga matches.
FC Bayern Needs a Strong Pair of Binoculars
All the more disillusioning was the 7-1 defeat in Barcelona. Bühl’s statement that everyone had done their best didn’t offer any real hope. When had Bayern last seemed so far from the European summit? Or, to quote Uli Hoeneß: when had the Munich women last had to scan the standings at Barça with such a strong pair of binoculars?
National coach Christian Wück dampened the mood a day later further still by lamenting the lack of playing time for his national players at the clubs. He challenged his colleagues in the Bundesliga in particular to show more courage with the young footballers to earn more German minutes on the field.
That club coaches, in the sense of professionalization, are tasked with developing the best players rather than the German ones apparently did not occur to Wück at all. The timing was also somewhat unfortunate. Bayern, for their part, have other concerns at the moment.
In the midst of this deep slump, VfL Wolfsburg stood out. The 4:0 victory against Paris Saint-Germain surprised the Wolfsburg players the most. “If someone had told me this beforehand, I would have signed it immediately—but not believed it,” admitted Alexandra Popp. While the magnitude of the result did not fully reflect the closer course of the match, the VfL team will now head into the next tasks with a very good feeling.
In the land of eight-time European champions and twice World Cup winners, there is a tendency to cling to faith in the team’s own greatness in moments of doubt. So in Munich there is little appetite for the idea of recalibrating goals after the defeat in Barcelona. The Champions League is a dynamic competition, Bayern’s director of women’s football, Bianca Reh, explained. A lot can still change.
