Last Matchday: Potsdam moves Frankfurt out of the Champions League spots

by Olaf Goldbecker

The focus on the last matchday was on 2.5 games. Wolfsburg’s championship was 99.9% secure and the club moved the match v Bad Neuenahr to the big Volkswagen Arena for the festivities after the game. Only a Wolfsburg loss and a simultaneous win for Frankfurt that would make up for a difference of 24 goals could have changed this. The real focus was on the games Frankfurt v Munich and Gütersloh v Potsdam. The battle for the second spot was the battle for the lucrative Champions League qualification. The situation was easy: Potsdam needed one point more than Frankfurt, otherwise Frankfurt would qualify. Munich won the last three games against Frankfurt but two were in the cup, the other ones on neutral ground. In their last home games, Frankfurt always killed Munich with high scores.

While everybody expected an easy win for Potsdam, nothing really happened in that game. The first to do something were Wolfsburg where Martina Müller scored the lead after nine minutes to wipe out any potential worries for over-nervous people. While Potsdam didn’t do anything for themselves, Bayern helped them. After 28 minutes Sarah Hagen marked the lead for Munich with her 20th goal of the season in championship and cup combined. With four minutes left on the clock before halftime, Lena Lotzen added the second goal for the Bavarians. And to top the difficult task for Frankfurt – even in case of a Potsdam-draw they would have needed two goals in the second half – Jennifer Cramer marked the lead for Potsdam right before halftime. After 45 minutes Potsdam went into the break with a virtual two-point lead over Frankfurt.

The second half started slow everywhere. While Wolfsburg’s celebration game in front of 5,859 fans rallied to a higher score – Müller again, Conny Pohlers and Nadine Kessler increased to 4-0 – Potsdam nearly clinched their game by Yuki Ogimi scoring a 2-0 lead after an hour. Surprisingly Frankfurt did not seem to change strategy and brought in forwards for forwards. Also Frankfurt had a good crowd of 3,820 – the other four games barely combined for 1,000. One of the new forwards brought some hope back to Frankfurt when Lisa Munk got her team on the scoreboard with five minutes left to go. Due to Potsdam’s score, a draw wouldn’t have been enough for Frankfurt, so two more goals were needed for Nadine Angerer’s team who announced her leaving after the season during this week. Yet nothing happened, Frankfurt lost their fourth straight game to Munich, this time 1-2 and will have to play another season without Champions League.

Other scores:

Sindelfingen v Leverkusen 2-2

Freiburg v Essen 1-1

Duisburg v Jena 4-2

Final Standings

1 Wolfsburg 53 pts

2 Potsdam 49 pts

3 Frankfurt 47 pts

4 Munich 43 pts

5 Freiburg 32 pts

6 Essen 30 pts

7 Bad Neuenahr 30 pts

8 Leverkusen 26 pts

9 Duisburg 24 pts

10 Jena 22 pts

11 Sindelfingen 12 pts

12 Gütersloh 7 pts