On Matchday 21, Bayern Munich is only one win away from the title, Turbine Potsdam is playing its last home game in the Bundesliga against Frankfurt.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen – FC Bayern Munich (Saturday, 1 p.m.)
A single win would be enough for Bayern Munich to celebrate their fifth championship in the club’s history with one matchday to go before the end of the season. Saki Kumagai is available again after her red card suspension, but defender Tainara is also out this week due to a muscular injury. According to midfield driver Sydney Lohmann, the key to the game for Bayern lies in the pressing: “They’re a young team with technical players who want to play from the back. We have to try to stop their passing game and get them to press well.”
In Leverkusen, meanwhile, they are happy about the contract extension with Sylwia Matysik. The 25-year-old Poland international originally joined the club as a midfielder, was then drawn to right-back at the start of last season and has done little else since. Defensively she prefers to intercept balls instead of going into a direct duel, offensively she is Leverkusen’s most important cross. A means that coach Robert de Pauw could hardly use this season due to Milena Nikolić’s long absences.
1. FFC Turbine Potsdam – Eintracht Frankfurt (Sunday, 1 p.m.)
If you count the duels with 1. FFC Frankfurt, Turbine Potsdam and Eintracht Frankfurt will meet for the 50th time in the Bundesliga. As if Potsdam’s last home game in the Oberhaus wasn’t dramatic enough for the time being after almost 30 years of first class, shortly before the farewell there is also the anniversary of a game that delivered so many close duels for the top of the table in the 2000s. A lot could be said about the developments in women’s football that are being pushed to extremes.
Because for Eintracht, three years after the merger with 1. FFC, for the second time in a row it is about securing participation in the Champions League qualifying round, for which one point is enough. That would be necessary to avoid departures like that of Sjoeke Nüsken to FC Chelsea less likely in the summer in the future, the departure of the 22-year-old is a great loss for the club.
SC Freiburg – 1. FC Köln (Sunday, 1 p.m.)
The calculators are probably running hot in Cologne, because for FC everything could still be at stake until the end of the last matchday. The question will be how the team of interim coach Nicole Bender-Rummler has digested the backlash of the most recent game. After Cologne led 1-0 for a long time, there was an equalizer in the last few minutes with a penalty kick, then even the winning goal from Meppen and Cologne slipped into a relegation zone.
Laura Donhauser (1. FC Koeln, 25) in a duel with Milla Punsar (SV Meppen 1912 eV, 14)
Either way, it is questionable how things will continue in the cathedral city in the near future, the successor to Sascha Glass has still not been clarified, Nicole Bender-Rummler has had to fulfill a difficult dual function for weeks and on the one hand repeatedly commit her team to the relegation battle, on the other hand together Managing Director Christian Keller find someone new for the coaching zone.
SV Meppen – VfL Wolfsburg (Sunday, 4 p.m.)
Meppen is on the upswing after last weekend, but on paper has the most difficult remaining program in the relegation battle. Because after the cup-winged Wolfsburg, the game against Frankfurt is still pending. In addition, it is already clear that Lydia Andrade, one of SV’s most conspicuous players, will leave the club. The Swiss moves to the promoted women from Leipzig.
VfL is very far away from such worries. With their tenth DFB Cup victory, nine of them in a row, the Wolfsburg women are now the sole record holders. For the first time, the stadium scenery did justice to such a final, 44,808 spectators came. The 4-1 final result belied the fact that SC Freiburg’s game was more open than generally expected.
SGS Essen – MSV Duisburg (Sunday, 4 p.m.)
A district derby against relegation: Essen is in a better starting position, but should be warned after the unnecessary defeat against Bremen. If the SGS stays in the league, it will go into its 20th Bundesliga season in a row. Essen would then be the last club in the Bundesliga without affiliation to a licensed club or third division club. With the promoted women from Leipzig and probably Nuremberg, staying up in the league will not be easier in the future.
The extension of defensive all-rounder Lena Ostermeier until 2027 seems all the more important, the 26-year-old has been with the club for almost ten years. This goes against the trend of the training club, which otherwise often has to give up its players all too quickly.
The only 19-year-old Natasha Kowalski could also arouse greater interest in the future, she has developed strongly in her first Bundesliga season. Because she is already one of the players with the most attempted passes in the last third of the league – although she does not play for one of the offensively much more dominant teams from the top region of the table.