Goalkeeper Almuth Schult went forward five minutes before the end. Goalkeepers only do that in emergencies, namely when their team absolutely needs a goal. With Schult the case was different. Their VfL Wolfsburg already led 4-0 in the final of the DFB Cup against Turbine Potsdam, but it was Schult’s last five minutes in the VfL jersey after nine years. And so she decided to do “something crazy” and go forward at a corner. “I even scored a side goal in training that week and it would have been fun if I had scored a goal for Wolfsburg,” she said.
Nothing came of a funny farewell goal in the cup final, but when Wolfsburg’s eighth cup win in a row and the ninth overall with this 4-0 (3-0) victory was perfect, it was reserved for Schult, who was moving to Los Angeles, the coach Pour the first beer over Tommy Stroot’s head. To this end, she crept up to the trainer with her back first and covered the huge beer glass with her body. Then she completed routinely.
They don’t want to know anything about perfection in Wolfsburg when it comes to titles. “All nine” was written on their cheering T-shirts. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they had to come up with something fun to do with a ten for the coming year. Only then would they have the record for themselves. With their ninth cup title, they only caught up with the record holder 1. FFC Frankfurt.
And the bell rang: Ewa Pajor (right) scored with a header after just eleven minutes to make it 1-0 for Wolfsburg.
(Photo: Darius Simka/Regios24/Imago)
So cup finals are a soft spot for the Wolfsburg women, but it’s especially a soft spot for their centre-forward Ewa Pajor. The 25-year-old Pole had already won the Polish Cup twice with her hometown club Medyk Konin, and she won the DFB Cup for the seventh time with Wolfsburg on Saturday. Being there is not everything for the clever attacker. Already in 2019 (against SC Freiburg) and 2021 (against Eintracht Frankfurt) she had scored the golden goal to win the final 1-0 – this time the player, who was only 1.67 meters tall, led her VfL with two header goals (11th and 32nd ) on the road to victory. Jill Roord (42′) and Dominique Janssen (70′) scored the other goals.
Again and again Wolfsburg: “It’s about time,” says Potsdam’s Isabel Kerschowski – and means a new winner
It wasn’t the heaviest final defeat in the history of the women’s DFB Cup competition, but Turbine Potsdam suffered the same in 2009 with a 7-0 loss to FCR Duisburg. It was the last women’s cup final in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, Duisburg’s coach was the current national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg and the final 7-0 goal was scored by today’s Wolfsburg-born Alexandra Popp. Since 2010, the women’s final has been held in Cologne every year with a decent but still expandable backdrop. 17,531 spectators saw the triumph of Wolfsburg, who played their Champions League semi-final first leg at FC Barcelona five weeks ago (1:5) in front of 91,648 spectators at the Camp Nou stadium. Given the full seating, a good 46,000 spectators would have fit in.
Would there have been more if the cup competition hadn’t gone to VfL Wolfsburg every year on a subscription basis? “It’s about time,” Potsdam native Isabel Kerschowski, 34, said before her very last game as a professional footballer, and even if one could have thought that this statement referred to the end of her career, she actually meant that one the Wolfsburg women did not want to win their eighth cup final in a row.
On November 16, 2013, VfL Wolfsburg last lost a cup game (0-1 at 1. FFC Frankfurt), on Saturday against Potsdam Kerschowski wanted to prevent Wolfsburg’s 40th consecutive victory in a cup game, but when she came on as a substitute in the 56th minute was, it was already 3-0 for Wolfsburg. There wasn’t much left to do.
“The team showed exactly what has characterized them all season,” praised Almuth Schult: “Joy, patience, goals.” In the last cup defeat in 2013, she was already there. “I’m still angry about them,” she said now and laughed. She is not worried about the future successes of her VfL after her move to the USA. The extraordinary team spirit at VfL is passed on from generation to generation, so to speak. That was a warning to the competition. It sounded as if VfL Wolfsburg could still dominate the cup competition for years to come.