Season opener
23,200 fans at the start of the women’s Bundesliga in Frankfurt
Bayern’s Lina Magull (l) in action against Eintracht Frankfurt’s Verena Hanshaw. photo
© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
Not a winner, but a winner: women’s football celebrates a record number of spectators at the start of the Bundesliga. However, they do not see goals in the duel between Eintracht Frankfurt and FC Bayern Munich. Still, the players are excited.
In front of a record crowd of 23,200 spectators and with a 0-0 draw between Eintracht Frankfurt and FC Bayern Munich, the women’s Bundesliga started its 33rd season.
47 days after the European Championship final in England, national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg experienced an atmospheric start on Friday evening in Deutsche Bank Park, where the Eintracht men usually play.
“It was super nice. It’s a setting that women’s football wants. We felt that at the European Championships, but we wanted to take that into everyday life in the league. It’s super nice that so many people came to support us. You absorb that on the field too, it’s a lot of fun and we hope it will continue like that for the next games,” Bayern international Giulia Gwinn said on TV channel Eurosport.
“It’s a great, great atmosphere here”
Frankfurt’s Geraldine Reuteler was also enthusiastic about the scenery. “It’s a great, great atmosphere here. It was really, really fun to play football here,” said the striker and praised her team for the fighting game: “I’m super proud of the team. We played a great game .” And coach Niko Arnautis enthused: “We played a really great game from the first second. The team put in a great performance today. We can still live with the point, we’ll build on it.”
The previous attendance record in the league came from 2014, when VfL Wolfsburg beat 1. FFC Frankfurt in front of 12,464 fans. The runners-up from Munich, under the new Norwegian coach Alexander Straus, missed the opportunity to set an exclamation point in the championship against Laura Freigang from Frankfurt. Defending champions Wolfsburg around DFB captain Alexandra Popp will play against SGS Essen on Saturday (1 p.m.).
Schüller honored as “Female Soccer Player of the Year”.
With the national anthem and the honoring of the German vice European champions in the Bayern and Eintracht teams, there was a bit of an EM atmosphere at the beginning. In addition, Munich’s international striker Lea Schüller was named “Soccer Player of the Year”. As a new signing, English European champion Georgia Stanway immediately took on a central role in FC Bayern’s midfield without setting any highlights until she was substituted at half-time.
The attacking trio with Schüller, Lina Magull and Klara Bühl had a hard time against the convincing Frankfurt women. After a mistake by Sjoeke Nüsken, Magull missed the huge opportunity to take the lead (48th). On the other side, Lara Prasnikar (67th) and Geraldine Reuteler (77th) failed to goalkeeper Maria-Luisa Grohs in a passionate and high-class game, but for a long time there were few goal chances.