As a small club from East Frisia, SpVg Aurich is once again shaking up the Bundesliga for U17 juniors. But the DFB is abolishing the competition. A wrong decision? There is a lot of misunderstanding in Aurich, but the club doesn’t want to give up.
Stefan Wilts actually has every reason to be happy. Even before the last matchday of the season, his U17 juniors from SpVg Aurich were already confirmed as winners in the North/Northeast Bundesliga season. The dream of winning the German championship lives on for the East Frisians. After losing the final against Bayer Leverkusen 2-1 last season, they are looking to pull off a big coup this time.
The first leg of the semi-finals will take place in Aurich on May 11th in front of a big crowd. Last year, 3,000 fans came to the stadium at Ellernfeld to cheer on the team in the semi-final against Eintracht Frankfurt.
DFB: Effort and return are not in a good relationship
However, all the euphoria for Wilts is currently accompanied by a lot of melancholy. The reason: The U17 Bundesliga, as Aurich has known it since promotion in 2018, will no longer exist from the coming season. The DFB is abolishing the league because, in its opinion, there is no healthy relationship between effort and income.
The travel across the country is simply too far for a game. And the number of players who actually make it from the U17 Bundesliga to the women’s Bundesliga is simply too small.
Village duels instead of games against Wolfsburg and HSV
This doesn’t go down well with the reigning runner-up. In recent years, SpVg Aurich has created a flagship project in the promotion of girls’ football on the North Sea coast. New talents from all over Germany move to East Frisia every year to take their chance in the U17 Bundesliga. The club takes care of them on site.
Sina Brühl and Lucy Minne (from left) have moved into one of the six shared apartments provided by SpVg Aurich.
The players are accommodated in a total of six shared apartments and go to school in Aurich as normal. Training takes place five times a week and then on the weekend we can compete against the likes of VfL Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen and HSV on the first floor. However, this will soon be over. Then the U17 junior girls should go around the region’s village squares to compete against boys from the U15 area. They are expected to play in the national league. Possibly only in the district league.
Goal scorer Minne: “We were really shocked”
This is not met with any approval from the players. “We were all amazed and really shocked,” says Lucy Minne. The striker came to Aurich from Göttingen to be able to get involved in the Bundesliga.
Lucy Minne (l.) from SpVg Aurich on the ball
With 13 goals, she is currently in second place on the season’s top scorer list. Until the end, the 15-year-old said, she hoped that there would be a change in thinking and that the U17 Bundesliga would continue to exist. She cannot understand the meaning of the reform.
“When you’re little and you start playing football, you think to yourself: ‘Wow, I want to play against VfL Wolfsburg.’ But now that’s no longer possible.”
— Sina Brühl from SpVg Aurich
“It was always a great honor to play against such big clubs,” she says. Because the prospect of the U17 Bundesliga is now no longer available, she fears that talented players in the future will forego moving to a club that is more professional in girls’ football and would prefer to stay with their home clubs without this incentive.
Aurich scores points for its infrastructure and family atmosphere
Minne lives directly on Ellernfeld in a shared apartment with her teammate Sina Brühl. There is a carer for the shared apartment, but the players have to look after the household on their own. From their kitchen window, the two of them can look directly onto the soccer field where they want to play the final of the German championship on May 25th. Brühl moved from her hometown, Donzdorf in Baden-Württemberg, to the far north in 2022.
The great support through the frequent training, the infrastructure, the qualified trainers and the family atmosphere in the club convinced them. “I saw a huge opportunity here. Then I really wanted to try it out,” she looks back. The midfielder never regretted the move.
Will reform make football less attractive to girls?
For Brühl, his time in the U17 Bundesliga ends in the summer anyway due to his age. She has decided to stay in Aurich and will play for the women’s team in the upper league from next season. The 16-year-old thinks it’s a “total shame” that the up-and-coming talents can no longer present themselves on the Bundesliga stage. “When you’re little, you start playing football and then you look at the big guys in the stadium, you think to yourself: ‘Wow, I want to play there too! I also want to play against VfL Wolfsburg,'” she says herself back to their former dreams. “But now that’s no longer possible. Playing against the boys is probably less attractive for some people.”
Coach Wilts is skeptical about reform
The Aurich women already know this from test games. In terms of football, they are much better trained and are clearly superior to the boys – but due to their physical inferiority, they end up losing the games. This has potential for frustration. Brühl fears that talented players could lose interest in the long run because all the hard work in training doesn’t pay off on the pitch. In the end, the boys who put a lot less effort into their sport win.
Doesn’t believe in the advantages of the reform in the U17 sector: SpVg coach Stefan Wilts.
Coach Wilts is also skeptical about the reform. When it comes to the absolute top talents, he admits, it is the case that they are better supported by the boys. “The example of Lena Oberdorf is always mentioned,” he reports. “Of course the question is: Is she so good because she played with the boys? Or was she so good to be able to play with the boys?”
Training with girls, playing against boys
In fact, the players who ultimately make it into the women’s Bundesliga often come from the boys’ division. Wilts is still not convinced. The reason: Those high-flyers among the talents would train with a boys’ team all week long – and then play with boys against boys on the weekend. From now on, the teams in the U17 junior area will remain. The players train with other girls all week – but then have to compete against physically superior boys at the weekend.
Wilts is primarily keeping an eye on the players who are not among the absolute top talents of the Oberdorf brand, but will initially gain experience in the second division, the regional league or slightly below. And for them, in his opinion, the reform is “a catastrophe”. The prospective holder of the A+ license reports that he has also spoken to many coaching colleagues in the Bundesliga. “The opinion is 90 to 95 percent that the abolition is viewed very critically.”
Club strives to become a support center
In Aurich, however, they now have to live with the reform. And the club is trying to make the best of it. The ambitious girls’ and women’s football is definitely continuing in the district town, which has a population of around 43,000. Striker Minne has also decided to spend another year in East Frisia. In addition to the games against the boys from the U15, she will also compete with the U17 in the Lower Saxony League from the summer.
This is necessary in order to achieve another goal. As part of the abolition of the Bundesliga, the DFB is introducing a DFB Cup for the U17s. In the first year, the Aurich women are still set as participants. Because their women’s team does not play in the Bundesliga or the Second League, they always have to qualify for the competition as champions in Lower Saxony.
Sina Brühl (r.) and her Aurich women will only play at regional level from the new season.
In addition to the pitch, the club is also working on being officially licensed by the DFB as a “female development center”. “We have worked through the DFB’s catalog of criteria and meet all the components listed there,” said Wilts. “Now we hope that the window will open soon so that people can apply accordingly.”
On the pitch, the Aurich women want to go down in history as the last champions of the U17 Bundesliga. Midfielder Brühl also dreams of this after last year’s final defeat. “That would be the crowning glory, the perfect ending.”
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Sports current | April 24, 2024 | 9:17 a.m
