The chances of VfL Wolfsburg Women successfully defending their FLYERALARM Women's Bundesliga crown this year may be slim when they host SC Freiburg on the final matchday of the season on Sunday 28 May (kick-off: 14:00 CEST), but it is certain to be an emotionally charged occasion one way or another.
Five players will bid farewell to the home crowd at the AOK Stadion, which is expected to be sold-out for just the second time ever, while Alex Popp has the opportunity to finish as the league's top scorer for the first time in her career. At his pre-match press conference, Tommy Stroot spoke about…
…personnel: "Marina Hegering and Lena Lattwein won't play. Apart from them, everyone else is available at the moment."
...possibly rotating his side: "At the moment there's no real reason to make a lot of changes to the starting line-up. We've had a couple of quiet days and I can see that the girls are beginning to get their freshness back. Having said that, obviously we've got our eyes on the players who will be leaving the club or retiring. Those are issues that we take into consideration on the coaching staff. But it's still a matchday where we have the theoretical possibility of winning the league title. With that in mind we won't rotate a lot from the outset, but we will approach the game with maximum professionalism."
…celebrations and a get-together after the game: "We'll have to look at how things stand in the league at the final whistle. If we finish second then we're not planning on having any big celebrations. We want to celebrate things that are in line with our sense of ambition. That would be winning the title. But even if we do finish second, we know we've still got a huge game ahead of us still to play."
