by Olaf Goldbecker
The numbers for this weekend were 3 out of 6, which means that winter still has a hold on Germany and no complete matchday has been played yet this year.
The first game was held on Saturday and ended with a surprise when Freiburg was not able to overcome Sindelfingen in a 1-1 draw. Juliane Maier got the lead for the home team ten minutes after the break but an own goal off Caroline Abbe tied the match. Sindelfingen now is at five points – four of them were collected against Freiburg. SCF Coach Pilipovic made the result of the first game (2:3 after 2:0 lead) responsible for the result: “The girls were nervous as they desperately wanted the win. If you want something by all means it doesn’t succeed, the ease was missing”.
Leading VfL Wolfsburg had little issues with FF USV Jena in a 4-1 win. After an early double strike by Alex Popp and Zsanett Jakabfi, the game was only open for twelve minutes early in the second half after Sabrina Schmutzler got Jena on the scoreboard. Viola Odebrecht and Conny Pohlers added the final goals. The game had to be moved to a turf field to make sure that the match could be played. Guest Coach Daniel Kraus had no complaints about the loss “Partially you had the feeling as if VfL was having two or three players more on the field.” Wolfsburg wanted to play by all means to get playing time in prior to the Champions League game vs. Rossyanka this upcoming Wednesday.
In a close heartbreaker, Bayern Munich had luck with a 2-1 win over SGS Essen. After half an hour the visitors took the lead on a penalty kick, converted by Sabrina Dörpinghaus. Matchwinner for Munich was Amber Brooks who equalized in the first half, and scored the game winner in stoppage time of the second period.
The standings are more and more imbalanced due to the incomplete matchdays. Wolfsburg leads with 32 pts (13 games) ahead of Potsdam (12) and Frankfurt (13) at 28 pts each. Freiburg sits in fourth with 25 but is the only team that was able to play all 15 scheduled games. Munich follows just one point after and has two more games to play. The cut comes on rank 6 with Essen at 18 pts (14), ahead of Bad Neuenahr (12), Leverkusen (14) and Jena (12) at 14 pts each. Duisburg with 11 pts in 13 games stays on top of the relegation spots, which are occupied by Gütersloh at 7 pts (13) and Sindelfingen at 5 pts (12)