by Olaf Goldbecker
The top game of matchday 20 took place in Frankfurt that hosted top seed Wolfsburg in an effort to keep the title race close. The visitors had the better start and hit the post by Anna Blässe early, but Frankfurt answered and scored the lead by Kerstin Garefrekes after a corner kick in minute 15. Midway through the first half the game had to be stopped for ten minutes when Nadine Angerer and Svenja Huth collided, both continued playing afterwards. Saskia Bartusiak added the second goal after the break for Frankfurt’s 2-0 win, which keeps the league open to a certain degree.
Potsdam surely was hoping on a Wolfsburg win to improve their chances on the Champions League spot, but all they could do was win their game against Leverkusen and keep the hopes alive on Frankfurt slipping elsewhere. Yuki Ogimi right before the break and Genoveva Anoma (2) in the second half cared for a 3-0 win.
Bayern Munich remains the first competitor of the top trio after defeating SC Freiburg, 3-0. Lena Lotzen scored two early goals to give her team a good position. An own goal by Caroline Abbe sealed the deal. Sindelfingen lost to Jena, 1-2 (goals Loipersberger – Hearn, Percival), which means that Jena will stay in the league definitely, while Sindelfingen would require a major miracle given that they need to make up a deficit of nine points and 40 goals to Duisburg (0-2 loss to Bad Neuenahr, goals by Störzel and Okoyino da Mbabi) within three games.
Gütersloh’s 1-2 home loss to Essen, goals by Gröbner for the home team and Mitchell, Wolf for Essen, completed the matchday.
Wednesday will even the standings in the remaining makeup games prior to the final two matchdays. Wolfsburg sits on top at 47 pts (3 games left), ahead of Frankfurt (44, 2) and Potsdam (40, 3). Munich (36, 3) will most likely not be able to enter the top three anymore.