by Olaf Goldbecker
Live game on TV, 8,249 in the stadium: triple winner VfL Wolfsburg opened the season vs. Bayern Munich on Saturday. Two new players found their way into the starting lineup at Wolfsburg, goalkeeper Almuth Schult and Sweden import Nilla Fischer, with Leonie Maier the only new player to start for Munich. The visitors were the better team and scored the lead by Katharina Baunach after a quarter hour. Wolfsburg struggled to even the match, did so by Lena Goessling in minute 69, but at the end of the day Wolfsburg was lucky to keep one point in the opener.
First top seed of the season is Bayer Leverkusen after defeating FCR Duisburg 3-0 with goals by Ramona Petzelberger (2) and Bella Linden. 1.FFC Frankfurt was starting well into the season, three new players made the starting lineup with Celia Sasic, Peggy Kuznik and Asuna Tanaka. In Freiburg the team won 2-0 on goals by Bianca Schmidt after a quarter hour and Dszenifer Marozsan short after the break.
The surprise of the day happened in Potsdam where Turbine did not manage to gain more than one point against FF USV Jena. The runners up from the last season started with Lia Wälti and Julia Simic as new players but despite only starting with two new players the team didn’t click and Head Coach Schröder was absolutely worried about the first half, in which Jena was the better team. They did not only score the lead by Ria Percival, they also hit the crossbar and had an offside goal. After the break Potsdam got stronger and tied by Maren Mjedle who also hit the crossbar later in the match.
The new teams started with points as well. BV Cloppenburg captured a 3-3 draw at SGS Essen in a real thriller. The first half was unspectacular, Swiss Vanessa Bernauer scored for Cloppenburg, while Isabell Wolf tied for Essen. The real action happened in the last twenty minutes when Essen paced away to a 3-1 lead on goals by Charline Hartmann and Madeleine Gier with seven minutes left on the clock. However, Mandy Islacker got Cloppenburg back on track in minute 87 and Bernauer tied in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
Elsewehere, TSG Hoffenheim started with a 1-0 win over Sindelfingen. Actually the win for the newly promoted team was expected and it was a surprise that they needed until stoppage time to score on a goal by Mana Iwabuchi.