Just four days after beating FC Carl Zeiss Jena 3-0, VfL Wolfsburg raise the curtain on Matchday 14 of the Google Pixel Women’s Bundesliga against 1. FC Köln at the Franz-Kremer-Stadion on Friday, kicking off at 18:30 CET. Speaking at his pre-match press conference, head coach Tommy Stroot shared his thoughts on…
…personnel: “We have Kristin Demann, who is a long-term absentee, and Camilla Küver, who has returned to training but won’t be involved against Köln because of a lack of sessions so far. Luca Papp is in a similar position. Marina Hegering has a fever and remains out, as does Lena Lattwein, who is unavailable because of a tooth problem and the antibiotics she’s taking for that. Sarai Linder is back, though.”
…changing goalkeeper: “Switching to five at the back, and everything that entails, has helped us a lot. It has allowed us to adjust how high our press is. We’re not closing down aggressively in a 4-3-3, as we were before, but operate with a little more patience from time to time. As such, the game we need from our goalkeeper has changed somewhat. That change in our goalkeeping approach has led to other realisations and developments. Anneke [Borbe] has just the qualities that can help us in that regard. Then there’s her reliability and the development Anneke has undergone in the last one and a half years, which has led to us making this decision for the benefit of the team.”
…a possible improved performance from Köln: “We have good analysts who obtain and analyse everything that’s available. Because their last game was postponed, we’re a game light in our preparation. We only have snippets of information from friendlies, which might not reveal everything Britta Carlson will bring to the team as their new but experienced head coach. As such, we’re very interested to see how Köln will perform. It was a big help to play with a back five against Jena, because we didn’t do that much in our preparations. We’re flexible and are prepared for a variety of solutions Köln might opt for.”
