After some initial difficulties, the VfL Wolfsburg footballers won the DFB Cup final in front of a record crowd of 44,808 spectators in Cologne. Captain Alexandra Popp’s favorite team beat SC Freiburg 4-1 (1-1) on Thursday after an unexpectedly tough fight and crowned themselves as the sole record winners with their tenth success. After the practically lost championship, the women from Wolfsburg celebrated their first title win this season. In the final of the Champions League on June 3 in Eindhoven against FC Barcelona, they can go one better – but that will be difficult in this form.
Four days after the surprising 4-0 draw in the Bundesliga at Eintracht Frankfurt, coach Tommy Stroot’s VfL women left no doubt that they wanted to win their ninth cup in a row. After a cross from Lynn Wilms, Lisa Karl maneuvered the ball into her own goal to make it 0:1 (4th minute). After the unfortunate start for Freiburg, young national player Janina Minge deservedly equalized in the sold-out Rhein-Energie Stadium (42nd). Rebecka Blomqvist (57′), Popp (84′) and Dominique Janssen with a hand penalty (89′) scored against Freiburg’s strong goalkeeper Gabrielle Lambert in the second half.
The fourth Wolfsburg goal was preceded by the first VAR appearance in a women’s cup final. After a tip from the video assistant and looking at the video images, main referee Fabienne Michel decided on handball and penalty kicks.
The previous record attendance of 26,282 fans at the 2010 premiere in Cologne between FCR Duisburg and USC Jena was increased significantly. Unusual for a women’s game that the stadium announcer had to warn the loud Freiburg fans not to burn any pyrotechnics before kick-off. “Fantastic! We’re all happy, we’re all enjoying it, it’s a great atmosphere. The Freiburg block in particular is really alarming,” said national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg at half-time in the Sky interview and praised the Freiburg women: “In the beginning they were very nervous, now they’re in the game. Now it’s open.”
Freiburg followed from the start
In the end, Wolfsburg trumped 1. FFC Frankfurt, who had won the cup nine times. It was Popp’s twelfth victory in the DFB Cup, having already triumphed twice with Duisburg. The captain of the German national team missed the 2-0 after 15 minutes when her shot went just wide of the post. Otherwise, the 32-year-old had to take a lot against not squeamish opponents.
Even without the injured DFB players Lena Lattwein and Marina Hegering and with goal scorer Ewa Pajor initially only on the bench, VfL initially dominated the encounter. The SC players, who only lost 1-0 to Wolfsburg in the 2019 final, were chasing a lot from the start. Coach Theresa Merk’s team had to give up more and more scoring chances to their experienced opponents, but came back shortly before the break: first national goalkeeper Merle Frohms saved against Lisa Karl, then Minge headed in to equalize.
Freiburg went into the second half with a lot of self-confidence, but showed themselves to be unsorted when they conceded the next goal against a VfL that was only partially convincing. Nevertheless, the outsiders didn’t give up and put Wolfsburg under pressure from time to time.
