Above the clouds, the FC Bayern Munich footballers celebrated the big step towards successfully defending their title. “I think that there will definitely be music playing on the plane and maybe one or two drinks will be allowed,” said national player Giulia Gwinn after the clear 4-0 win at long-term rivals VfL Wolfsburg. The league leaders are still hovering above the rest of the Bundesliga without a defeat this season.
“The victory means a lot for us,” said coach Alexander Straus. The defending champions extended their lead to seven points with five matchdays remaining. “I don’t want to get too carried away, but I think we’ve given ourselves a pretty good cushion,” Gwinn said. Lea Schüller was even clearer on ARD: “If we don’t act stupid, we should definitely get it done easily,” said the 26-year-old.
For the Wolfsburg team, the clear, but somewhat too high result was part of a phase of setbacks – Bayern have currently clearly overtaken the former industry leader. Saturday’s clear victory was the Munich team’s first in Wolfsburg in over 15 years. Another sign: National player Lena Oberdorf is moving from Wolfsburg to Munich in the summer.
VfL team folded
The VfL footballers have practically given up on their championship dreams after the clear defeat. “I think it’s very, very unrealistic that Bayern will let this be taken away from them. I’m that honest,” said VfL coach Tommy Stroot. Kathrin Hendrich agreed: “Bayern won’t let that go, we don’t need to sugarcoat it. 0:4, that definitely sounds bad.” But the result “doesn’t fully reflect the game,” added the central defender. It didn’t help much that Gwinn also said: “At altitude, that sounds very, very extreme. I don’t think it was that extreme.”
Bayern were ruthlessly effective after Wolfsburg’s mistakes. “That just wasn’t enough,” said Wolfsburg’s Jule Brand. “To stay in the race, more of us would have had to come,” complained the 21-year-old.
Now the Wolfsburg women are at least hoping for a good result in the DFB Cup. Next Saturday the SGS Essen awaits in the semi-finals. “We still have a competition in which we are still fully involved and we will concentrate fully on that,” promised Marina Hegering, who injured her calf and was substituted after 20 minutes. The two top teams could then meet again in the final on May 9th in Cologne; the Munich team will face Eintracht Frankfurt beforehand.
