On Tuesday evening, six first and two second division teams are challenged in the women’s DFB Cup quarter-finals. There is certainly potential for surprises, but there are also clear outsiders.
1. FC Köln – VfL Wolfsburg: Serious lack of goals for the FC women
Three days after the VfL Wolfsburg men’s Bundesliga away win at 1. FC Köln, the Wolfsburg women also play in the cathedral city on Tuesday evening (February 28th, 2023, all games in the live ticker at sportschau.de). The roles could not be more clearly distributed in this DFB Cup quarter-final. The Wolfsburg star ensemble around Alexandra Popp is the clear favorite in the game, the Cologne women are clear outsiders.
While the Wolfsburg women, who brought the DFB Cup to Lower Saxony in the past eight years, are currently greeting confidently from the top of the Bundesliga table, things are going disastrously for Cologne’s women. Most recently, coach Sascha Glass’s team went six games without scoring their own goal and conceded 15 goals. A home win against VfL Wolfsburg would be tantamount to a small football miracle because of this poor form.
FC Carl Zeiss Jena – SC Freiburg: Coach Christian Kucharz wants the first win
The women at FC Carl Zeiss Jena have still not come to terms with relegation from the Bundesliga. In the 2nd league, the FCC women are still not in step, which is why coach Steffen Beck had to resign on February 9th. The new man on the Jena sidelines is Christian Kucharz. But there hasn’t been anything countable in the league under him either. Last Friday (February 24th, 2023) Jena lost 1: 5 at RB Leipzig.
In the cup, FC Carl Zeiss Jena now has SC Freiburg in front of them, who are in fifth place in the Bundesliga. So far there have been two meetings between the two teams – in each of which there was a swatter for the Thuringians: In October 2021 Jena went swimming with 1: 5, five months later with 1: 7.
RB Leipzig – SGS Essen: Vanessa Fudalla leads the top scorer list in the 2nd division
The soccer players from the second division team RB Leipzig, who won at the weekend, will face SGS Essen in the quarter-finals. In the previous round, Leipzig threw out Eintracht Frankfurt (2-1), Essen beat Werder Bremen (1-0).
The initial situation promises an exciting game: The undisputed leader of the 2nd division meets the seventh in the Bundesliga on the Cottaweg – potential for a surprise. Special attention is paid to Leipzig’s top striker Vanessa Fudalla. The 21-year-old, who was born in Nuremberg, is the top scorer in the 2nd division with 17 goals. In order to tame the goal-hungry Fudalla, a compact defensive performance by the Essen women is required.
TSG 1899 Hoffenheim – FC Bayern Munich: The cup history speaks for FCB
TSG 1899 Hoffenheim played against FC Bayern Munich twice in the history of the women’s DFB Cup (2012, 2021). Both times it was a quarter-final game, both times the game took place at TSG’s home ground and both times the Munich team prevailed in the end (2-1, 5-1).
It is not only because of this internal cup history that the Bayern women around European champion Georgia Stanway can go to Hoffenheim with confidence: The team of Norwegian coach Alexander Straus has had seven wins in a row in all competitions, including the 4-0 win in Hoffenheim on 2nd August. December 2022. Tuesday evening will show whether Bayern’s series will continue. SWR Sport will broadcast the game live from the Dietmar Hopp Stadium from 8.30 p.m.