Well, the recent losses in the league probablyt to a great deal come from them becoming third in the league without possibility of advancing or dropping places in the table for the five last rounds. That's probably very demoralizing. The losses previously this season may come from the neavy schedule and injuries on their key players. Pretty much the same thing that happened to Umeå last year.
Thanks Potsdam and Montpellier followed Franfurt to the semifinal both with convincing wins, Montpellier in Brøndby and Potsdam at home. Brøndby - Montpellier 1 - 3 Potsdam - Valur 11 - 1
A good run in the Cup for Sparta Praha. Hopefully this will give a little more exposure to women's soccer in the Czech Republic.
DIF had all the opportunities but totally lacked the final touch. Meanwhile, the one Sparta chance was lethal, but the DIF goalie was on her toes and made a great save. All according to TV coverage (http://svt.se/svt/road/Classic/shared/mediacenter/player.jsp?d=21995&a=471998)
Very "successful" home games in Germany today 1st leg: Frankfurt - Montpellier 0:1 Potsdam - DIF 2:3 Frankfurt played bad from the beginning while Potsdam managed to get worse while the game progressed, with losing after being 2:0 in front.
You could also make a point that Djurgården finally managed to convert one of their many opportunities when Linda Fagerström scored in the 78th minute. Efficiency-wise, Turbine were the clearly the better team, since Djurgården failed to shoot the ball towards the goal once they were in the box. Finally though, Laura Kalmari was subbed in and passed the ball to Linda Fagerström. After that, the game deteriorated from Turbine's point of view, I'd say Kalmari saved the day for Djurgården. The initial goals from Turbine were simple individual errors on the part of Åström and Brogårde respectively (if I understood the guy on the radio correctly) not to take anything away from Turbine, since one of the goals apparently featured a fantastic shot from Christiane.
You mean like aplauding the opponent's ability? Which normal self-respecting football fan would ever do that But honestly, I wasn't watching the whole game, because I changed between both televised semis, but seeing the mistakes that led to the goals for DIF, you would believe that Turbine wasn't leading 2:0 at home. Their coach was looking p*ssed to aay the best Christiane had a nice shot but it was deflected, so I would hold that for Åström, while she might have jumped a little higher on Pohlers second goal. For reaching the final, I still have higher hopes for Turbine though. i would believe with a little bit more focus they are able to beat DIF, even with Kalmari playing from the beginning Edit: MY spelling needed some improvement
Looks like there'll be a match report posted here: http://www.maerkischeallgemeine.de There's already a pregame story. BTW; Ich bin der Alte Schwede. For those who, like me, don't know a lick of German, I suggest you babelfish it and then think long and hard about what would be a reasonable meaning. Is it just me or are the automatic translators getting worse by the minute?
I can se how D/Ä could bet Postdam, if D/Ä got their game together which they done very rarely this season. But Montpellier beating Frankfurt? Are they really that good? Could we possible have the first non-German/Swedish finalist actually getting there by beating a German/Swedish team? Is this the end of the Swedo-Teutonic dominance of European Women Club Football? Or I am just going hyperbolic?
Montellier's win was definately no mistake. Sure, Frankfurt played bad but that could have been caused by the really succesfull game plan Montpellier put on. Very physical with high pressure on Frankfurt and a pretty good attack. Especially Thomis was causing havoc, great technique. ANd as Frankfurt couldn't score the win was deserved.
DIF was ok but not really impressive for most of the match - but: Potsdam lost the ball very often in the first half, and so they had to chase over and over again. That and the deep wet surface cost a lot of energy they were lacking in 2nd half. DIF's coach seemed to anticipate that, and he subbed in two fresh forwards (Johannson and Kalmari) when Potsdam was quite slow already. That strategy worked obviously, brilliant. BTW: Potsdam were not playing superior before, despite these two goal that came from lucky long-range efforts. As for the Frankfurt match: Montpellier were playing very fine, both technically and tactically. They were marking the FFC players very closely throughout the match and they had some very fast attacking players (esp No 14 Tomis (sp?)). At the same time Frankfurt was not able to create enough pressure, there was way too few team movement while in posession. As a consequence the attacking play was rather slow, too slow to produce enough clear chances, and the French had no real problems defensively. I have to add that the referee's perfromance was abysmal. The French were a bit over-motivated obviously and produced lots of fouls and hand play. The ref should have shown the yellow/red card to more than one French player. But I don't want to take anything away from Montpellier, they were the more clever team, and won deservedly. This was on of the worse performances by the FCC team this season. And just like in their encounter with Arsenal they have to fight back in the 2nd leg match - but alas that one is on the road this time round.
Second leg semifinal: Montpellier HSC - 1. FFC Frankfurt 2:3 (1:2) 0:1 Smisek ( 10. ) 1:1 Diguelman ( 17. ) 1:2 Lingor ( 38. ) 1:3 Smisek ( 50. ) 2:3 Diguelman ( 84. /pk ) Yellow-Red: Faisandrier ( 70. ) Red: Wissink ( 70. ) Frankfurt through to the final. Unbelievable behaviour by the host team. Game was stopped for about 15 minutes after the 70th minute. According to the tv report, the game was stopped after a corner kick for Montpellier due to a called foul suffered by Frankfurt's goalkeeper Wissink. While on the ground, Wissink retaliated by kicking an opponent. After that, the referee first showed a yellow card to Faisandrier what led to yellow-red after a caution before, while Wissink was shown straight red. So far, so good. But when Frankfurt wanted to proceed with the following goal-kick the french requested a penalty and were told by their coach to leave the field in protest. So Montpellier was off as a whole, referee restarted the game, Frankfurt scored on the empty goal. Lots of discussion afterwards, goal finally not allowed and minutes later the game was started again, this time with all players ( german and french ) on the field. After that Montpellier managed to get another goal but Frankfurt came through. If all the reports turn out to be exactly like they appeared to be on tv, I exspect at least a fine for Montpellier.
Djurgården/Älvsjö-Postdam: 2:5 It will be a pure German Final. And now they have had more Finals than Sweden. 5 Finals: 5 German apperances, 4 Swedish and 1 Dannish.
Both teams with rather shaky defensive effort today what let to many goals. But Potsdam looked more determined in their offense. Tough loss for DIF that Linda Fagerström was away on holiday.
Do you think it would have made any difference if Linda F. had played (and did she issue a more detailed explanation)? --bc 5-2 is pretty convincing. I wonder if Jane T. being absent in the defense also made a difference.
I guess we never know, but as she was one of or the best player for DIF in the first game, she might have. Jane T. was definately missed. Difficult to single one defensive player out, but Curtsdotter looked bad on at least two goals. As far as Fagerström goes, I read she had planned and booked the holiday long before when it looked as if there would be no games at that time. And now she couldn't change her arrangements because her boyfriend couldn't get time off at another month. She receives some critisism from the media as far as I understood after reading some articles.