It’s now 16 years since Turbine Potsdam’s Bundesliga team last won the DFB Cup. In 2006 they beat 1. FFC Frankfurt 2-0 in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. Since then they have been in the final four more times, but they have not managed to win the title. “So it’s about time again,” says Turbine defender Isabel Kerschowski.
As outsiders in the final
Turbine will have their next chance to lift the trophy on Saturday at the Müngersdorfer Stadion in Cologne. However, they travel to the final in the Rhineland as clear outsiders, because in the final they meet German champions VfL Wolfsburg.
The Wolfsburg women are not only on the hunt for the double, but also want to celebrate their seventh cup win in a row. “I hope that we can trip them up there. (…) The form on the day will be decisive, and how the weather will be and how the place suits you. So there are many aspects that come together,” says Kerschowski.
Turbine has not won against VfL Wolfsburg in twelve games across all competitions. The Potsdam women celebrated their last win in November 2016. Turbine coach Sofian Chahed is well aware of the quality of the opponents, as he says. Above all, he praises their individual class.
But he still doesn’t want to hide, says the coach. “We want to play boldly and not put ourselves behind.” He wants to focus entirely on his own performance. However, a little help from the opponents is still needed to survive against the favourites: “Everything has to fit for us and not everything for them. Then we have a chance.”
Disappointing end to the season
At the end of the season, however, things did not quite go well for the women from Potsdam. They really wanted to finish in the top three teams and qualify for the Champions League.
But with defeats against their direct competitors Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich, they just missed out on the premier class on the last two match days. “Nevertheless, we played a very successful season. We scored four more points and scored seven more goals than in the previous season. You can’t downplay that,” says coach Chahed.
His players don’t want to be dragged down by the disappointment at the end of the season either. The final of the DFB Cup is the big highlight of the season for the Turbine team and they finally have the chance to win a title again. “We’re all happy that we can show how good we are and that we deserve it. It’s going to be a close game,” said captain Sara Agrez.
Veteran Isabel Kerschowski is also convinced that it could work this year. Even if the opponents seem unbeatable. “You can win every game. You have to put your heart into it and act as a team. Then every team is beatable,” she says.
Cup win at the end of your career?
Kerschowski knows what she’s talking about. At Turbine’s last cup win in 2006, when she was 18, she scored one of the two goals to victory. Since then she has also played for Wolfsburg and Leverkusen and four more trophies, seven championship titles, winning the Champions League and the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rio 2016 followed.
The 34-year-old has been playing in Potsdam again since last year and will play the last game of her career in the DFB Cup final on Saturday. As a farewell, she says, she definitely wants to reward herself and her home club with another title. “I definitely want to be present, talk to the team and coach them. I think you can have a big influence there,” she says.
Coach Sofian Chahed also wants to trust that. “She has experience, has played finals and knows what is important. And she can pass that on,” he says. “In this respect, we hope that she will help the team to get the best out of it, either from the start or from the bench.”
upheaval in summer
In addition to Kerschowski, other top performers will also leave Turbine in the summer. Sara Agrez, Melissa Kössler, Gina Chmielinski, Dina Orschman and Luca Graf are moving away from Brandenburg for the coming season. There will be a change in a phase in which it is already difficult for the Potsdam club to build on the success of the past few days and to prove themselves against the ever-increasing competition in German women’s football.
“Wolfsburg, Bayern, Hoffenheim and Frankfurt have overtaken us,” says coach Chahed. “We have to be careful that we continue to play in the top third. But that will be difficult enough in the next few years.”
Before that, however, they will all return to the pitch as a unit on Saturday in Cologne, before the next season starts with new staff. “I think it’s about time. Everyone in the team is hungry and most of them haven’t won a title yet,” says Isabel Kerschowski combatively.
Source: rbb