DFB Cup final
The eternal Popp: record cup winner with perspective
Alexandra Popp scored 208 times in her 421 competitive games for Wolfsburg and her old club Duisburg. photo
© Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
Alexandra Popp scores and scores and scores – and has been doing so for VfL Wolfsburg since 2012. Manager Kellermann sees the club’s most prominent female footballer as far from finished.
Record cup winner Alexandra Popp also has a position at VfL Wolfsburg beyond her football career. The VW Club would like to give its most accurate and prominent employees “opportunities” after their careers end.
“Her contract currently runs until 2025. If she stays healthy, which we all hope, it doesn’t have to be over yet,” said Ralf Kellermann, director of women’s football at the runner-up, in a media round before the DFB Cup final against the champions on Thursday FC Bayern (4 p.m., ZDF/Sky) about the 33-year-old captain. “I don’t think it’s out of the question that it will accompany the upheaval that we will have by 2025 at the latest,” added Kellermann.
Popp, who is also captain of the national team, is “actually indispensable,” said Kellermann about the most successful player in the DFB Cup with twelve titles. “If you just look at her on the field, that’s actually enough; how important she is for us and how she leads the way.” Popp also scores a lot of goals; the striker, who is strong in the air, scored 208 times in her 421 competitive games for Wolfsburg and her old club FCR 2001 Duisburg. Their cup record is also impressive: 40 goals in 53 games.
“She is the leader from A to Z”
In recent years and with taking over the captain’s armband in the national team, Popp, who has been playing in Wolfsburg since 2012, has developed further, said Kellermann. She is even more of a leader on and off the pitch, “she is the leader from A to Z that we need with this group we have.”
Popp’s non-sporting future could also lie in Wolfsburg. However, discussions have not yet been held in this regard, said Kellermann.
Popp himself wants to continue anyway. “I’m often asked: You’ve already won almost everything. And you’ve already won the cup so many times. Is it still fun, are you still hungry for it?” said the national player in an interview with ” Kicker” and then explained: “Yes, because I know how cool it is to be rewarded at the end for all the sweat you’ve put in throughout the year.”
“This is currently the ultimate”
In the DFB Cup, the title went to Wolfsburg nine times in a row; the Wolves are unbeaten in their favorite competition for 49 games. “We are going to Cologne with only one feeling: that we can win a trophy,” said Kellermann before the trip to the Rhine. “And nothing else is an issue for us.”
The fact that the Munich team, who have been champions since Saturday, is a team that has beaten VfL twice this Bundesliga season (2:1 and 4:0) makes the task all the more attractive for Kellermann: “Everyone knows that’s what it is at the moment The ultimate in German women’s football, there is great anticipation.”