After eleven games without a win, the women of 1. FC Köln are deep in the Bundesliga relegation battle. In addition, the position on the sidelines is vacant after the dismissal of Sascha Glass.
Without a win in eleven league games, without a goal in ten games and without a coach for four days after the dismissal of Sascha Glass – this Bundesliga season of 1. FC Köln is probably one to forget. But despite everything, it is still possible to stay in the league – and on the way there, a real highlight awaits the FC women.
At the beginning of the season, those responsible at 1. FC Köln certainly had imagined things differently. After the team had managed to stay in the Bundesliga for the first time in the club’s history in the previous season, a radical change was made in the summer.
Twelve players left the club and just as many new ones joined, including the German international striker Selina Cerci and Sarah Puntigam, who has already played 129 times in the jersey of the ÖFB women. The motto was clear: the “surprise team of the league” should stabilise in the midfield of the Bundesliga table and in the long run be able to advance into the upper regions of the table.
But after 16 match days, the FC women have long since come back down to earth. Only twelve points from 16 games currently mean twelfth place in the table and thus a direct relegation spot.
The 1-0 defeat by relegation rivals Werder Bremen on Friday meant that the team missed its first match point on the way to staying in the relegation zone. Sascha Glass was already out of the game by then. The day before the crucial match, the Geißböcke had drawn the consequences from their sporting misery and sacked their coach, with sporting director Nicole Bender-Rummler taking over on an interim basis.
However, the vacant position is expected to be filled by the next match against MSV Duisburg (31 March, 7:15 pm). According to the portal “Soccerdonna.de”, Friederike Kromp is a promising candidate. The 38-year-old is currently the coach of the U17 women’s national team at the DFB.
One of the first tasks of the new appointment would probably be to end the team’s goal drought. For ten games now, the FC strikers around the experienced Mandy Islacker (277 Bundesliga games, 142 goals) and Cerci (54 games, 26 goals), who has recovered from a cruciate ligament rupture, have been waiting for a goal.
If possible, the knot should be broken against Duisburg. With a win against MSV, the team could move past the Zebras into a non-relegation spot and keep their chances of staying in the league alive with five matchdays to go.
The players would also be promoting a planned highlight: When 1. FC Köln hosts Champions League aspirants Eintracht Frankfurt on 23 April, the club would like to break the attendance record for a women’s Bundesliga match. To do so, more than 23,200 fans must find their way to the RheinEnergie-Stadion.
On 8 March, the Geißböcke announced that 11,111 tickets had already been sold for the match, slightly less than half of the minimum target number. Three points against MSV could give the advance sales figures another boost – and the team anyway.
