Bundesliga returnees Turbine Potsdam started the new Bundesliga season with a defeat. Coach Marco Gebhardt’s players kept the game open for a long time and ultimately conceded avoidable goals.
With a lot of effort, the women’s soccer team from FC Bayern Munich avoided a bad start to the new Bundesliga season. The German champions and Supercup winners won 2-0 (1-0) against the self-sacrificing defending promoted team Turbine Potsdam after a largely unimaginative performance. Defender Linda Sembrant headed both goals in front of 6,106 spectators in Potsdam’s Karl Liebknecht Stadium (22nd/85th minute).
“I think they will make it difficult for us, make the spaces tight,” Bayern coach Alexander Straus had said beforehand on MagentaTV. He was right, but this did little to help his team against the six-time champions. The Munich team, who had changed four positions compared to the Supercup victory against VfL Wolfsburg (1-0), rarely found gaps in the tightly staggered Turbine defense.
National player Sydney Lohmann, who like Sembrant, Carolin Simon and Lea Schüller is new to the starting eleven, had the best idea in the first half. With a sensitive pass, she served Schüller after eight minutes, who took the ball directly but put it just over the goal. Otherwise, the champions, who had won the last Bundesliga duel between the two teams in May 2023 with 11:1, left a lot to be desired, especially in terms of play.
For a long time, it was hardly noticed that Turbine’s coaching duo Marco Gebhardt and Dirk Heinrichs had to do without six players. “We will have to suffer, we will have to work,” Gebhardt predicted, and his team worked particularly hard defensively. Hungary’s national goalkeeper Anna Terestyenyi, who replaced regular goalkeeper Vanessa Fischer, had much less to do than expected.
The Munich team only posed a threat to the goal at corners. The first, taken by Simon, led directly to the visitors’ lead. Sweden’s national player Sembrandt headed the ball home from a completely unmarked position. Another corner kick taken by Giulia Gwinn hit the post. “We were simply asleep there,” said Potsdam’s injured midfielder Viktoria Schwalm, analyzing the goal during the break.
After the break, Schüller and Lohmann were both thwarted by Terestyenyi, and both were finished after just over an hour. Linda Dallmann and Jovana Damnjanovic were supposed to provide fresh impetus. Munich continued to dominate, but there were hardly any real chances to score.
Although Straus’ team had everything under control, the Potsdam team was still hoping for a sensation until the final phase. It was not until the 85th minute that Sembrandt calmed the nerves of the Bayern supporters when she was on the spot again after a Gwinn corner. Terestyenyi, who was otherwise in good form, did not cut a very happy figure.
Broadcast: rbb24, 30.08.2024, 10 p.m.
