Denmark has had a surprise frontrunner this season and is 6 weeks from crowning the 2020/21 champions. The winners of the 8-team regular season were not the traditional powers Brøndby (2nd) or Fortuna Hjørring (3rd), nor the ambitious club Nordsjælland Farum (5th). The newly promoted HB Køge went straight in at number 1 - they beat Brøndby on goal difference and Hjørring by 1 point, while KoldingQ were 4th. The playoff points system widened the gap, and Brøndby (20pts) and Køge (19pts) are the only likely champions now. Køge's away loss to KoldingQ, 3-1, took away their top spot. They visit Brøndby on Saturday, the first of the clubs' two playoff matches. Køge, south of Copenhagen, are coached by ex-Brøndby player Peer Lisdorf, and like Nordsjælland, those clubs are both targeting Champions League football.
More national champions will be known soon - here are two more from the 2020 seasons: Lithianua: Gintra-Universitetas continued their incredible run, it's now 16 women's championships in a row. In a season completed amid the pandemic, Gintra won all 20 games, and in 2nd and 3rd were Žalgiris-MRU Vilnius and Kauno Žalgiris. Top scorers were Rimantė Jonušaitė (Gintra), 48 goals, and Kamilė Vaičiulaitytė (Kaunas) got 30. https://lff.lt/news/11569/moteru-futbolo-a-lygos-18-savaite-galutiniai-taskai/ (Archive) Latvia's top club were Rīgas FS for the 7th time. The 2019 champs Dinamo Riga were possibly a short-lived club and they didn't take part. Rīgas FS also took their place in the Champions League in 2020. The national season had to end after only 11 games - not sure if RFS are named officially as 'champions'.
Lol, I dunno where they spell it that way! Czech Women's League (I. liga) is another almighty clash between Sparta and Slavia in 2020/21. The Prague giants ended the regular season totally level on points and goal difference after this result: SK Slavia Praha 2 - 0 AC Sparta Praha Petra Divišová 12', Martina Šurnovská 68' - Match report: zeny.fotbal.cz (Archive) But Sparta's earlier 5-1 home derby win puts them in 1st on the head-to-head rule. Regular season info: Sparta (Goals 75–7) 39pts, Slavia (Goals 77–9) 39pts, Slovácko 28, Viktoria Plzeň 15, Dukla Praha 14, Lokomotiva Brno 13, Slovan Liberec 12, Pardubice 5 The top four now play in what is nicely named the "Postgraduate" season, a double round robin to determine the champions.
Actually, it looks like we have 3 slots for Champions League qualification this year and Slovacko did in fact earn the last one by some distance: On the same day, Slovácko's women secured Champions League playoffs (though that was hardly in doubt). What a day for the club! https://t.co/9n4JKeYzUi— Czech Football 🇨🇿 (@czechfooty) May 15, 2021 Their men's team also defied expectation and qualified for European competition as well so a big year for a small-town club.
Not a coincidence. The club is in the town of Uherské Hradiště, but it's named after the region that it is in and it is the border region : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravian_Slovakia It's one of few parts of the country that still has some fairly noticeable dialects.
Tonight could be a historic night for the Swiss women's league, which is likely to have its first champions from Francophone Switzerland since DFC Sion in 1976/77. Servette FCCF are 7 points ahead of FC Zurich with 3 games remaining. Zurich have actually won the head-to-head contest (2W, 1D, 1L), but they dropped many points to YB (3rd) and Basel (4th). The league leaders Servette will secure the title if they get a home win against YB today, live on Swiss television. The teams' March matchup was a thriller: YB Frauen 2 - 3 Servette - (Courtney Aliza Strode 4', Nadine Riesen 73' / Amandine Soulard 37', Marta Peiro Gimenez 43', Maeva Sarrasin 90+4') https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=453715559294744 All in all it's an interesting division, with some games in big city stadiums, and some in what look like semi-rural ones in the Alps. Every goal in the Swiss season is on the Facebook video page. In a sad contrast the Swiss-Italian club Lugano have had a mystifying collapse. They fell from 2nd place in 2019 into last place in 2020/21, with 0 points until March and only 2 wins coming late this season. If Lugano go back to Nationalliga B, they may be replaced by its top team Aarau although that division's season has been disrupted.
Perhaps Lugano players moved on for better pay and they lost the good players to maintain that winning club.
Unfortunately my free articles for the month with WaPo are out, but you are absolutely correct, and here's the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...ayers-find-home-switzerland-champions-league/ IIRC, (since I can't re-read the article right now,) the owners or coach or someone in the club structure is American, or at least was at the time*, so there was a fairly significant pipeline of young female players to Europe through Lugano. *Just last season, actually!
Servette FCCF did lift the Swiss title with a 2-0 win over YB-Frauen, though Servette were confirmed as champions before the final whistle due to Zurich's 2-2 draw at Basel the same evening. The final winning margin was 5 points. And in the women's cup this weekend, Zurich have also lost out - Saturday's final was won by Lucerne (FC Luzern), 2-0, both goals by 18-year-old Swiss international Svenja Fölmli. FCL women win their first national cup for fifteen years, while 2020/21 is a rare trophyless season for Zurich. Lugano might just survive in the first division! They're in a relegation playoff and leading 2-1 vs Thun after the first leg. The Swiss WSL is now adding 2 places to make 10 teams in 2021/22, so a pair of teams have won automatic promotion from Nationalliga B: Aarau (1st) and Yverdon (3rd). FC Zurich U21s took an impressive 2nd place but are ineligible to go up, and Thun were 4th.
It's a big weekend in leagues and cups in many countries: @shlj posted in the UWCL thread, It has been one of the closest possible title races in Prague, one win apiece for the local rivals, and both playoff derbies were 1-1, but Sparta kept top spot in the Czech league due to the better aggregate score (5-3) in those regular-season matchups. The two clubs are still almost identical in their goalscoring record as well. "Derby skončilo remízou, rozhodne poslední kolo. Blíž k titulu má Sparta" / "Derby ended in a draw, the last round decides. Sparta is closer to the title" - (Fotbal.cz)
In Denmark, HB Køge completed their astonishing rise to the title, with a 3-1 home win over Brøndby. And that in Køge's first season in the top division. The match on Saturday was a championship decider - a goal by Kyra Carusa and two by Cecilie Buchberg made it 3-0, and a last-minute penalty was scored by Brøndby's Nanna Christiansen. Køge win the league over Brøndby by 5 points. Fortuna Hjørring finish 3rd in the league, but they end on a downer, a 5-0 home loss to Nordsjælland (5th). In the Danish women's cup, Kvindepokalen, the 2020 runners-up went one better this year, but more disappointment for Brøndby: FC Thy-ThistedQ 2 - 1 Brøndby, 30 Apr www.dbutv.dk/video/68510268/fc-thy-thisted-q-slar-brondby-og
Ukraine had the 2021 cup final on Saturday (5 Jun), between the country's two leading sides: Zhytlobud-1 v Zhytlobud-2 www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAoDtFNrBos Z-1: Sanina, Aleksanyan, Apanashchenko (A. Voronina, 48), Shmatko, Basanska, Havanska, Petryk (Sadikoglu, 84), Kochneva (Kunina, 84), Boychenko (Shevchuk, 66), G. Voronina, Ovdiychuk. Z-2: Bondarchuk, Filenko, Podolska, Korsun, Sirmai, Andrushchak (Kitaeva, 70), Pantsulaya, Kalinina, Andrukhiv (Kotyash, 72), Malakhova, Kravchuk (Vintonyak, 86). - (Ukraine Women's Football) If 3 goals are a hat-trick, 5 goals are a "penta-trick", apparently! And the striker Yana Kalinina achieved that in the last league game for Z-2 and she won the 2021 golden boot, but her club Z-2 couldn't retain the title and they finished as runners-up of the Ukrainian league this season. Zhytlobud-1 became national champions for the tenth time, after they beat their Kharkiv rivals Z-2 in May by 4 goals to 1.
...What "argument"? That's just the name (in Russia and Ukraine, anyway), penta-trick. I'm guessing in Italian calcio they call 5 goals a "royal flush", or something? MORE THINGS: Greece has completed its hardest season in the women's league. 2020/21 was delayed again and again by lockdowns and didn't kick off until 11 April. The ten-game season ended on Sunday (13 June). PAOK Athens were unbeaten and won their 7th title in succession. Another famous Greek club, Panathinaikos, is re-starting in women's football with a new team in the 3rd division, to be led by ex-national coach Dimosthenis Kavouras. - (inPAOK.com) Moldova: Eastern club Agarista Anenii Noi retain the title (2020/21 is their 4th), but they lost the cup semi-final, 3-2 on aggregate, to one of the Moldovan teams with a more motivating name. Maksimum Cahul beat the country's top team, only to lose the cup final 2-1 to the last-placed team, Narta Drăsliceni. (and Real Succes ended second-last! So, the name thing doesn't always work)
Good question... a "hexa-trick"? A pair of hats? Even more things... In Croatia, the title rivalry remains perhaps the closest in the world - ŽNK Split and Osijek went head-to-head in the regular season and championship group, and it was those games that ended up deciding the points tiebreak. Their results: 2-2, 2-2, 2-2, and 0-0! Osijek had the best goal difference but it was 2 away goals that won the title - the 2 opening strikes by Lorena Balić and Martina Šalek, in May's 2-2 draw. That gives Osijek the 2020/21 championship, after Split had held the trophy since 2019. Balić has her 4th year as top goalscorer (44). Split 2 - 2 Osijek youtube.com/watch?v=gendsRPrF6Q Luxembourg isn't a big hitter but the women's league has more history than many in larger countries - Ligue 1 began in 1972, but for the most successful club, this could be the end of an era. Progrès Niederkorn won 16 titles until 2010/11 but are set to be relegated in 2020/21, and you have to say they earned it (0 points, 1 goal). Dunno what's gone wrong at that club when the men's team had some success. The women's league has a new champion, too, Racing FC Union Luxembourg, after they came close to it before 2021. Their title-securing game finished 10-3! While the former champs Bettembourg won 24-0, so some players must have scored '___-tricks' of many kinds.
Ukraine: Another giant club joins women's football, Shakhtar Donetsk. Their new team will enter the women's 2nd division, the "First League". Portugal has a new champion, who won a title decider to end the 2020/21 season. The best eight teams competed in the Championship Group over 14 matchdays, and Sporting Club de Portugal would have won their third title, if they'd beaten their close rivals SL Benfica in Lisbon in the last match. Sporting had won both previous games, 3-0 and 1-0, away from home. They hosted the last match at their Alvalade stadium, but it was a stunning turnaround and Benfica wins the league by 5 points: Sporting CP 0 - 3 SL Benfica Nycole 5', Cloé Lacasse 83', Kika Nazareth 88'p www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTJ-nukpFR4 - Match report: FPF Champions: 2012/13 Atlético Ouriense, 2013/14 Atlético Ouriense, 2014/15 CF Benfica, 2015/16 CF Benfica, 2016/17 Sporting CP, 2017/18 Sporting CP, 2018/19 Braga, 2020/21 SL Benfica SL Benfica also won the league cup but lost the (2020) Portuguese women's cup final in January 2021 - the No.3 club Braga won it, 3-1. The former champions of the same name who existed earlier, CF Benfica, are relegated to the national 2nd division.
I still say, women's football won't achieve its destiny until it gets its own Europa Conference League. ...(Uefa seem to be using the logic, "the Europa League might finally flourish if we put an even less credible tournament below it") News from the 2021 women's league seasons running thru summer: Finland could have a new champion. When the regular season ends, the Liiga's top two will be KuPS (Kuopio) and TiPS (Tikkurila) ahead of defending champs Åland United; the playoffs follow next. A sensational season so far for the eastern club KuPS and their North Macedonian striker Gentjana Rochi, who has 19 goals in the first 17 games. Estonia: A shock loss for the league leaders, Flora, who are now struggling towards a possible 4th title in succession. New rivals Saku Sporting are effectively 1 point behind in 2nd place - Katriin Saulus scored the goal in their 1-0 win over Flora last week. In the previous season Flora won the title by 19 points! Lithuania: 11 of 11 games won for Gintra-Universitetas in the A Lyga, and they lead MFA Žalgiris by 8pts. Latvia: The 2021 title was won early by Rīgas FS, their second championship in a row and 8th overall.
This reminded me that summer is over, and so are the 2021 league seasons. Some champions here: ⬤ Russia: Lokomotiv Moscow win their first women's title. ⬤ Iceland: Valur regain the title, after ending 2020 as runner-up:
⬤ It was a title decider in Estonia in the last (24th) matchday. Flora chasing their fourth title, and Saku Sporting were aiming for their first. Entering the last week in the Meistriliiga championship playoffs, the points standings were Flora 64, Saku 63: Tallinna FC Flora - Saku Sporting - Match highlights: EJLTV, Youtube - Full match on SoccernetEE youtube.com/watch?v=cxtTLX1XCM8 FLORA: 43. Getriin Strigin, 2. Jessika Uleksin, 8. Helina Tarkmeel, 11. Maarja Saulep (c), 16. Jaanika Volkov, 19. Anastasia Ivanova, 20. Ariina Mürkhain, 33. Kelly Rosen, 59. Lisette Tammik, 61. Getter Saar, 72. Mari Liis Lillemäe; sub 13. Kristina Teern, 34. Maarija Mikiver. SAKU: 8. Keiti Kruusmann, 4. Grete Daut (c), 9. Eva-Maria Kriisa, 10. Katriin Saulus, 23. Hanna-Lisa Kuslap, 26. Triin Satsi, 29. Paula Maria Mengel, 30. Lisandra Rannasto, 40. Elise Kreuz, 44. Heleri Saar, 55. Berle Brant; sub 15. Ulrika Tülp, 16. Riin Satsi, 81. Kairi Himanen - (Estonian Football Association)
Finland has crowned a new champion club in the National League - KuPS (Kuopio) maintained their 1st place through the playoff round robin. A highlight was their 4-3 victory at Åland United, the previous title-winner. Then, the 2nd- and 3rd-placed teams TiPS and Åland drew 3-3, and KuPS secured the gold with a 1-0 win at Helsinki's HJK, the 2019 champs, who came 4th this time. Åland won the Finnish Cup, on penalties in the final vs PK-35 Vantaa. On top of this first title, Kuopio is aiming to become Finland's football capital, having also won the 2019 men's title. Åland United 3 - 4 KuPS Cassandra Korhonen 66', 78', Sarah Troccoli 80' / Aino Kröger 41', 61', 90', Gentjana Rochi 45' www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3ds-NxS__Y ...And that was 2021! Wishing a Happy Xmas & New Year to all.
Yes, @blissett. That's why I lovingly seek out stories in the world's smaller leagues, so that they can get a sub-Twitter zinger reply. It makes it all worthwhile. Anyway, as you should well know, Bermuda shorts season ended a good 3 weeks ago. It's now the season of Russian midwinter chic