In Ewa Pajor, one other high participant is leaving VfL Wolfsburg. The Bundesliga membership now has to strengthen itself additional so as to have the ability to sustain in Germany and Europe. The challenges are nice: Wolfsburg not has the identical attractiveness in ladies’s soccer because it did in earlier years, and the membership urgently wants to speculate. The perspective is not dangerous although.
Last week, the footballers of VfL Wolfsburg made a giant assertion: with their victory within the DFB Cup ultimate towards the champions from Munich, the Wolfsburg ladies demonstrated their power and on the similar time countered the speculation of some that there had been a “altering of the guard” in Bavaria’s favor in German ladies’s soccer have. Nevertheless, VfL has had a troublesome season. Last season’s finalists didn’t qualify for the Champions League, they misplaced to Munich twice within the league and surprisingly misplaced factors in different video games.
Now three common gamers and internationally identified professionals, Lena Oberdorf, Dominique Janssen and Ewa Pajor, are leaving VfL. This initially doesn’t make the prospect of success within the competitors with Bayern any higher. So far, the membership has introduced two reinforcements for the approaching season: Janina Minge comes from Freiburg, who is taken into account Oberdorf’s alternative, and central defender Caitlin Dijkstra from Twente Enschede follows Janssen. Both transfers make sense, however they aren’t large names in worldwide soccer.
Big names within the competitors from Munich
FC Bayern, alternatively, precipitated a sensation final yr alone with a number of signings of well-known gamers: Pernille Harder, Magdalena Eriksson and Linda Sembrant got here, and the English European champion Georgia Stanway prolonged her contract early. Something must be finished to counteract this in Wolfsburg, say some specialists. However, it was not often VfL’s method to carry stars to the Mittelland Canal – the method now solely stands out compared to the Bavarian offensive.
Oberdorf got here to VfL as a “expertise of the century” and is leaving as a European nice, Pajor moved to VfL on the age of 18 and is now presumably selecting the well-known and financially robust FC Barcelona. She is utilizing a contractually required exit clause from her contract and is more likely to generate earnings of just about 500,000 euros for VfL. The transfer from Oberdorf – of all locations – to Munich had already introduced round 400,000 euros into the coffers.
The metropolis and infrastructure lose out in worldwide comparability
Ralf Kellermann, Wolfsburg’s director of girls’s soccer, may buy groceries with a full pockets – however most likely will not. On the one hand, signing high worldwide stars would imply shifting away from the trail and result in main variations within the wage construction of the ladies’s crew. On the opposite hand, Wolfsburg shouldn’t be an choice for gamers like Vivianne Miedema, who might be leaving Arsenal after the season. The membership and metropolis don’t exude as a lot glamor as giant European cities.
The 2017 European champion will most likely keep on the island, as a result of there and in Spain at FC Barcelona, feminine footballers now discover one of the best circumstances in lots of respects, and the salaries are additionally increased than within the Bundesliga. “Barca” solely professionalized its ladies’s soccer division in 2015 and, with the sources and fame of the world membership, rapidly grew to become one of many high addresses in Europe. VfL, Champions League winners in 2013 and 2014, will not have the ability to shut this hole.
Another necessary level: the infrastructure. In Germany, the coaching circumstances on Wolfsburg’s Elsterweg are nonetheless thought of high, however the buildings with a Nineteen Seventies look and the encircling space usually are not half as “fancy” because the Munich campus. And Manchester City is presently constructing a brand new coaching middle for the ladies’s crew for ten million kilos, whereas elsewhere the boys’s and ladies’s departments share services. Wolfsburg cannot sustain with that in the mean time.
Investments are urgently wanted
The membership urgently wants to speculate, maybe even in some form of ladies’s soccer middle together with a youth academy, with a view to stay aggressive in the long run. However, it’s unlikely that there might be a big monetary injection from proprietor Volkswagen. Although the group will enhance funds to Fußball GmbH from the summer time, in accordance with NDR data, a complete quantity might be paid for the boys’s and ladies’s departments. VW has no affect on how the cash is distributed, and the corporate will most definitely not pay any subsidies for brand new buildings and coaching services – though the footballers are very valued within the boardroom on the canal.
The investments, whether or not within the ladies’s squad or within the infrastructure – a subject for the brand new VfL managing director, the place continues to be vacant. Marcel Schäfer, who was unexpectedly launched in April, was very dedicated to ladies’s soccer. You want a successor who does the identical and acknowledges that the duties can’t be finished “simply on the facet”. Alternatively, Director Kellermann could possibly be given extra superior expertise.
Rumors about Beerensteyn and Linder
With all his expertise and know-how, Kellermann after all has an enormously necessary function at VfL and has lengthy been working within the background to compensate for the departures from the crew. Lyneth Beerensteyn from Juventus Turin and the German worldwide Sarai Linder from Hoffenheim are thought of different newcomers.
Alexandra Popp, the largest star in German ladies’s soccer, continues to play in Wolfsburg, in addition to another nationwide gamers corresponding to “taking pictures star” Jule Brand. Even if the steadiness of energy has shifted in Europe, if different golf equipment pay extra money and a few promise nice glamour: you need to by no means write off VfL. The cup ultimate confirmed that lately.
This subject in this system:
Sports present | May 14, 2024 | 2:25 p.m