Women Football Season 2015/16

As I'm just watching the Euro 2017 qualification match of the German NT against Hungary, I thought one could set up a fresh thread for women football in 2015/16.

Some players for Germany retired, so we will see a team in transition. Almuth Schult takes over in goal from Nadine Angerer, and with Célia Šašić and Kim Kulig two more top players hung up their boots, the latter sadly due to numerous heavy injuries and repeated knee surgeries. Fatmire Alushi is missing, too, but she intends to come back after a 1 year break to have a baby.

From this match on, Steffi Jones works as an assistant to head coach Silvia Neid so that she will be able to take over seemlessly after Neid passes the baton to her after the Olympic Games 2016.


Germany Call-Up for the Euro Qualifiers:

GKs: Laura Benkarth (SC Freiburg), Almuth Schult (VfL Wolfsburg), Lisa Weiß (SGS Essen)

Defenders: Saskia Bartusiak (1. FFC Frankfurt), Kristin Demann (TSG 1899 Hoffenheim),Tabea Kemme (1. FFC Turbine Potsdam), Annike Krahn (Bayer 04 Leverkusen), Leonie Maier (Bayern München), Bianca Schmidt (1. FFC Turbine Potsdam)

Midfielders: Melanie Behringer, Sara Däbritz, Melanie Leupolz (all Bayern München), Anna Blässe, Lena Goeßling (both VfL Wolfsburg), Sara Doorsoun-Khajeh (SGS Essen), Rebecca Knaak (Bayer 04 Leverkusen), Simone Laudehr (1. FFC Frankfurt)

Strikers: Pauline Bremer (Olympique Lyon), Anja Mittag (Paris Saint-Germain), Lena Petermann (SC Freiburg), Alexandra Popp (VfL Wolfsburg)


Hungary Call-Up for the Euro Qualifiers:

GKs: Barbara Bíró (Viktóriá-Trend Optika FC), Réka Szócs (ACF Florenz)

Defenders: Szilvia Szeitl (1. FC Femina), Szabina Tálosi (SC Südburgenland), Viktória Szabó, Zsófia Rácz (both 1. FC Lübars), Gabriella Tóth (Werder Bremen),  Evelin Mosdóczi (Ferencvárosi TC).

Midfielders: Angéla Hummel-Smuczer, Lilla Nagy (both MTK Hungári FC), Evelin Fenyesi (Ferencvárosi TC), Erika Szuh (FC Neunkirch), Henriett Csiszár (1. FC Lübars),  Alexandra Tóth (SC Südburgenland), Zsanett Jakabfi (VfL Wolfsburg).

Strikers: Lilla Sipos, Fanny Vágó (both FSK St.Polten-Spratzern), Sára Krisztin (FC Neunkirch).

Germany vs Hungary

German NT: Almuth Schult (GK); Annike Krahn (46. Sara Däbritz), Melanie Behringer, Saskia Bartusiak (C), Pauline Bremer, Leonie Maier, Lena Goeßling, Tabea Kemme (46. Melanie Leupolz), Simone Laudehr, Anja Mittag (46. Anna Blässe), Alexandra Popp

Hungarian NT: (sorry, haven't found the line-up of them)

Goals:
07.) 1:0 - Alexandra Popp (assist by Melanie Behringer)
09.) 2:0 - Leonie Maier
16.) 3:0 - Tabea Kemme (assist by Alexandra Popp)
19.) 4:0 - Melanie Behringer (FP)
28.) 5:0 - Pauline Bremer (assist by Anja Mittag)
33.) 6:0 - Lena Goeßling (assist by Anja Mittag)
39.) 7:0 - Lena Goeßling
63.) 8:0 - Simone Laudehr
66.) 9:0 - Alexandra Popp (assist by Anna Blässe)
70.) 10:0 - Pauline Bremer (assist by Sara Däbritz)
71.) 11:0 - Melanie Leupolz
84.) 12:0 - Pauline Bremer (assist by Sara Däbritz)

FT - German NT 12:0 Hungarian NT

Lewandowski goal flood continues!

Robert Lewandowski has a female name sake, Anja Lewandowski, who plays for SV Glatten (in Baden-Württemberg) in an amateur division.

Just after Robert Lewandowski scored his 5 goals against Wolfsburg on Tuesday, Anja Lewandowski scored 4 goals in 22 minutes in the second half against Musbach on Wednesday:


And right after Robert scored 2 goals against Mainz on Saturday, Anja scored two goals within 8 minutes against Oberiflingen on Sunday.

When the scout of the Polish NT heard about this, he immediately contacted the 18 year old and inquired whether she has Polish nationality, too, but unfortunately for them she only holds the German passport.

Source: http://www.20min.ch/sport/fussball/story/Anja-Lewandowski-zieht-schon-wieder-Robert-nach-11832357
http://www.fussball.de/newsdetail/fast-wie-robert-lewandowskis-vier-tore-gala/-/article-id/131499#!/section/stage

Women's Champions League 2015/16

Last 32, 1st leg matches (7th/8th Oct 2016)

Standard Liège 0-2 FFC Frankfurt
FC Twente 1-1 Bayern München
Brescia 1-0 Liverpool
St. Pölten-Spratzern 4-5 Verona
PK-35 Vantaa 0-2 Rosengård
PAOK 0-3 KIF Örebro
BIIK-Kazygurt 1-1 FC Barcelona
Atlético Madrid 0-2 Zorkiy
Stjarnan 1-3 Zvezda-2005
Slavia Praha 4-1 Brøndby
LSK Kvinner 1-0 FC Zürich
Chelsea 1-0 Glasgow City
Spartak Subotica 0-0 Wolfsburg
Medyk Konin 0-6 Olympique Lyonnais
Olimpia Cluj 0-6 Paris Saint-Germain
ZFK Minsk 0-2 Fortuna Hjørring

The second legs will be played on Wednesday and Thursday next week.

By the way, Germany is the only country with 3 clubs in the CL as 1.FFC Frankfurt won the 2015 Champions league, but they only ended on the 3rd place in the Bundesliga.

(Normally only the champions of leagues qualify for the women's CL plus the runners-up of the 8 top leagues plus last year's holders if they ended outside the normal qualification places.)

Additionally, Anja Mittag managed to score her 47th and 48th goal in the Women's Champions League, thus equalling the former competition record of 48 goals by Conny Pohlers.


Anja Mittag of Paris St.Germain

Source:
- http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/news/newsid=2290652.html
- http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/news/newsid=2290803.html

Hard to say how much bias was involved, but according to the LFC Women's twitter feed it sounds as though they played quite well against Brescia and were unlucky to lose. Hopefully they can rectify that in the home leg.

Liverpool should be able to overcome their 0:1 away loss at home - although it is always dangerous not to have scored "that away goal".

I was a bit surprised that VfL Wolfsburg only managed a scoreless draw away against Spartak Subotica. Now they have to win against them at home.

Oops, I totally forgot to update the 2nd leg results. ^^

FFC Frankfurt 6:0 Standard Liège (Aggregate 8:0)
Bayern München 2:2 FC Twente (Aggregate 3:3, Twente win on away goals)
Liverpool 0:1 Brescia (Aggregate 0:2)
Verona 2:2 St. Pölten-Spratzern (Aggregate 7:6)
Rosengård 7:0 PK-35 Vantaa (Aggregate 9:0)
KIF Örebro 5:0 PAOK (Aggregate 8:0)
FC Barcelona 4:1 BIIK-Kazygurt (Aggregate 5:2)
Zorkiy 0:3 Atlético Madrid (Aggregate 2:3)
Zvezda-2005 3:1 Stjarnan (Aggregate 6:2)
Brøndby 1:0 Slavia Praha (Aggregate 2:4)
FC Zürich 1:1 LSK Kvinner (Aggregate 1:2, LSK win after extra time)
Glasgow City 0:3 Chelsea (Aggregate 0:4)
Wolfsburg 4:0 Spartak Subotica (Aggregate 4:0)
Olympique Lyonnais 3:0 Medyk Konin (Aggregate 4:0)
Paris Saint-Germain 9:0 Olimpia Cluj (Aggregate 15:0)
Fortuna Hjørring 4:0 ZFK Minsk (Aggregate 6:0)

The Last 16 Draw is due on Monday, with the following two pots:

Seeded:
FFC Frankfurt (GER, holders) coefficient 72.680
Olympique Lyonnais (FRA) 115.080
Wolfsburg (GER) 97.680
Rosengård (SWE) 69.295
Paris Saint-Germain (FRA) 59.080
Fortuna Hjørring (DEN) 50.870
Zvezda-2005 (RUS) 37.520
Barcelona (ESP) 36.530

Unseeded:
ASD Verona (ITA) 20.550
KIF Örebro (SWE) 20.295
Chelsea (ENG) 19.140
FC Twente (NED) 14.610
Brescia (ITA) 14.550
Slavia Praha (CZE) 13.560
Atlético Madrid (ESP) 13.530
LSK Kvinner (NOR) 12.075

Women's Balon d'Or shortlist for 2015

Players:
Nadine Angerer (Germany/Brisbane Roar/Portland Thorns)
Ramona Bachmann (Switzerland/FC Rosengård)
Kadeisha Buchanan (Canada/West Virginia University)
Amandine Henry (France/Olympique Lyonnais)
Eugénie Le Sommer (France/Olympique Lyonnais)
Carli Lloyd (USA/Houston Dash)
Aya Miyama (Japan/Okayama Yunogo Belle)
Megan Rapinoe (USA/Seattle Reign)
Célia Šašić (Germany/1.FFC Frankfurt)
Hope Solo (USA/Seattle Reign)


Coaches/Managers:
Calle Barrling (Sweden/Swedish U-19 national team)
Colin Bell (England/1.FFC Frankfurt)
Farid Benstiti (France/Paris Saint-Germain)
Jill Ellis (USA/USA national team)
Laura Harvey (England/Seattle Reign)
John Herdman (England/Canadian national team)
Gérard Prêcheur (France/Olympique Lyonnais)
Mark Sampson (Wales/English national team)
Norio Sasaki (Japan/Japanese national team)
Thomas Wörle (Germany/FC Bayern Munich)



Hard to see past the World Cup winners there, to be honest.

Hm. I think Colin Bell wouldn't be a bad choice among the coaches. After all, he won the CL, which is not that easy either.

For the players, I'm undecided. Many good women there ^^

Which reminds me - here's the Last 16 draw of the Women's CL:

Women's Champions League Last 16 results:

FFC Frankfurt 0-2aet LSK Kvinner (agg: 2-2, 5-4pens)
VfL Wolfsburg 2-0 Chelsea FC (agg: 4-1)
Paris Saint-Germain 0-0 KIF Örebro (agg: 1-1, Paris win on away goals)
Fortuna Hjørring 1-1 Brescia (agg: 1-2)
FC Barcelona 1-0 Twente (agg: 2-0)
Olympique Lyon 6-0 Atlético Madrid (agg: 9-1)
Rosengård 5-1 Verona (agg: 8-2)
Zvezda-2005 0-0 Slavia Praha (agg: 1-2)

Vanessa Bernauer's beautiful goal against Chelsea:


Source: http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/news/newsid=2305837.html
http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/news/newsid=2305840.html

Road to the final
Quarter-final & Semi-final draw: 27 November
- Quarter-finals: 23/24 & 30/31 March
- Semi-finals: 23/24 & 30 April/1 May
- Final (Reggio Emilia): 26 May

This is just embarrassing now.

First the US team cancelled a friendly in Hawaii because of how bad the turf on the playing field was (Rapinoe suffered an ACL injury while training on the pitch and they were posting images on the day before game-day of areas where the artificial turf could be lifted at the seams). Now, in their friendly with Trinidad & Tobago, there have already been two non-contact injuries, one of which required a sub, and another player has had to have a massive bloody bit of carpet burn caused by the turf that required treatment... all within the first 20 minutes.

I read about this in the Guardian a while ago and thought this was absolutely inexcusable. According to the article, the ACL injury was not due to the artificial turf, though, but because the pitch in itself was in a very sorry state in general.

Here's the Guardian article about the Hawaii friendly boycot: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/dec/07/were-the-us-womens-soccer-team-right-to-boycott-their-own-victory-tour

https://twitter.com/DasGherkin/status/676979486991208449

On a more somber note, Abby Wambach plays her last ever professional match tomorrow, as she's retiring at the end of the year. It's an often overused phrase but for once it's accurate:

Greatest
Of
All
Time

14 years playing for the national side
254 international matches played
182 goals
75 assists
13 goals in 19 WC finals matches
9 goals in 11 Olympics games










https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/aa/04/d3/aa04d335b65ab0afa2535cbb382c707b.jpg

Sadly people didn't really notice when I posted this as she announced her intent to retire
http://www.goallegacy.net/t30470p252-official-retirement-appreciation-thread#1516063

Women's CL QF 1st Legs:
Rosengård 0-1 FFC Frankfurt
Barcelona 0-0 Paris Saint-Germain
Olympique Lyon 9-1 Slavia Praha
VfL Wolfsburg 3-0 Brescia

Women's CL QF 2nd Legs:

Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 Barcelona (agg: 1-0)
FFC Frankfurt 0-1 Rosengård (agg: 1-1, Frankfurt win 5-4 on pens)
Brescia 0-3 VfL Wolfsburg (agg: 0-6)
Slavia Praha 0-0 Olympique Lyon (agg: 1-9)

Source:
http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/news/newsid=2345857.html
http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/news/newsid=2347102.html

The women's CL has their semi finals lined up:

- Olympique Lyon vs Paris Saint-Germain
- VfL Wolfsburg vs FFC Frankfurt (holders)

The Final will be played in the Stadio Città del Tricolore in Reggio Emilia on 26 May 2016, 18:00 CET.

• The final will be a Franco-German affair for the sixth time in the seven seasons since the launch of the UEFA Women's Champions League, the only exception in 2013/14 when Wolfsburg won 4-3 in Lisbon against Sweden's Tyresö.

• Wolfsburg or Frankfurt will ensure a German finalist for the ninth consecutive season and the 13th time in all 15 editions of the UEFA Women's Champions League and its predecessor, the UEFA Women's Cup. Both exceptions involved Sweden's Umeå, who beat Denmark's Fortuna Hjørring in 2003 but lost to Arsenal four years later.

Source: http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/news/newsid=2347584.html


Semi-finals first leg (24 April 2016):
- Olympique Lyon 7:0 Paris Saint-Germain
- VfL Wolfsburg 4:0 FFC Frankfurt (holders)

Source:
- http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/season=2016/matches/round=2000673/match=2018967/postmatch/report/index.html
- http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/season=2016/matches/round=2000673/match=2018968/index.html

The women's CL Semi Final Part Deux:

Semi-finals second leg (1 May 2016):
- FFC Frankfurt 1:0 VfL Wolfsburg  (Aggregate 1:4)

Semi-finals second leg (2 May 2016):
- Paris Saint-Germain vs Olympique Lyon

Source::
- http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/season=2016/matches/round=2000673/match=2018970/index.html

By the way, congratulations to Bayern München for winning the Bundesliga title early. This means that Bayern will at least be able to celebrate the double again (guys & gals with the title) ^^

Oh, and Borussia Mönchengladbach won promotion to the Bundesliga this season.

rwo power wrote:By the way, congratulations to Bayern München for winning the Bundesliga title early. This means that Bayern will at least be able to celebrate the double again (guys & gals with the title) ^^

Oh, and Borussia Mönchengladbach won promotion to the Bundesliga this season.

There's a Norwegian player on that team, right? I think I read about it in a local newspaper. I also read that Norwegian NT player, Ada Hegerberg is on course to win the treble with OL this season. I don't know if it's true, but I think she deserves all of the success she can get. Amazing player

Bayern München have Nora Holstad Berge of Norway as CB and VfL Wolfsburg who already reached the CL final have two Norwegian players, striker Synne Jensen and currently injured midfielder Caroline Hansen.

As it is expected that Olympique Lyonnais will advance to the CL final after beating PSG 7:0 in the semi final first leg, this means that at least one Norwegian player will lift the CL trophy ^^

rwo power wrote:Bayern München have Nora Holstad Berge of Norway as CB and VfL Wolfsburg who already reached the CL final have two Norwegian players, striker Synne Jensen and currently injured midfielder Caroline Hansen.

As it is expected that Olympique Lyonnais will advance to the CL final after beating PSG 7:0 in the semi final first leg, this means that at least one Norwegian player will lift the CL trophy ^^

7-0? Wow I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, considering OL have a goal machine in Ada Hegerberg