The mood? "Is very special." And the anticipation? “It's huge,” says Merle Frohms. On Friday, a Frankfurt travel company set off, electrified by the great opportunity to ennoble a previously unspectacular season marked by setbacks. This season now offers the women of Frankfurter Eintracht the option of lifting a trophy in the glittering rain in the Cologne arena. The DFB Cup final this Sunday (4 p.m. on ARD) will be a big day for the Hessians who are mostly inexperienced on the biggest stages of their sport.
For a first entry in the letterhead of the SGE women's football division in the first year after the merger with 1. FFC Frankfurt, the best performance in the history of the SGE women's football division is required.
Opponents VfL Wolfsburg not only compete with a world selection of top players, but also with the certainty that they will be almost invincible in Cologne cup finals.
Six times in a row and seven times in the past eight years, the Lower Saxons not only reached the finals, but also received the “pot” afterwards.
Little share in the win
Merle Frohms also lent his hand five times to the trophy at the award ceremony - more or less enthusiastically, as professionals do, whose share of success is small.
Merle Frohms was a substitute goalkeeper at VfL, Crown Princess von Almuth Schult, but had no real chance of getting past the national goalkeeper.
“It was also frustrating at times.
But overall, I don't regret any of the years in Wolfsburg with the very good training I got there in this team.
That time made me better and taught me that being a goalkeeper also depends on patience, "says the 26-year-old.
Your time has indeed come.
Once the Crown Princess in Wolfsburg, in the summer she was the queen transfer of Eintracht, who brought her from SC Freiburg to the Main - and is currently, if you will, firmly on the throne as national goalkeeper. “This year she has improved her sporting skills in all areas and her personality has matured. Merle doesn't have to hide behind any goalkeeper in Germany and is rightly number one, ”says SGE head coach Niko Arnautis.
And so it comes for Merle Frohms in the Cologne final to a duel with her past in the Wolfsburger Tor - Almuth Schult is number one there again. It could also develop into a duel for the future in the goal of the DFB selection. Merle Frohms has set himself the goal of going to the European Championships in England in 2022 as a regular, Almuth Schult also pursues the highest standards again. The VfL goalkeeper had said goodbye on maternity leave and gave birth to twins, which is why Merle Frohms inherited her position in the national team.
It will now depend on the blond between the posts in the final for Eintracht in particular.
It seems clear that she will have a lot to do against the double winner, for whom the cup final is probably the only title chance this year.
“I'm looking forward to being challenged and being able to distinguish myself,” says Merle Frohms.
“I've shown all season that I'm a real supporter.” A torn ligament in her left arm doesn't restrict her thanks to a tight tape bandage.
"Working on strengths"
In the mixed league round - before the last match day, Eintracht is only in sixth place - the SGE was able to reduce the number of goals it conceded by almost half compared to the previous season. Her predecessor, the American Bryane Heaberlin, was certainly a solid force, but due to her smaller body size and the language barrier, she was not as an authority in goal as Merle Frohms. “In Frankfurt I was able to work on my strengths and weaknesses in a more targeted manner. One focus was on my presence in the air and on building up the game - in this respect I am particularly challenged in the national team. I've developed into a leader, ”she says.
In the past few months, the athlete from Celle has developed the self-confidence that she is now demanding of her teammates with a view to the final. "We have to have the courage to be offensively dangerous," says Merle Frohms. Because she knows about the voracity of the “she-wolf pack”. “They are never full. The team is always put together in such a way that it has a special will to win. We shouldn't assume that they will have enough after the many titles in the past, ”said Frohms.
But: “Anything is possible in a final. It's a completely different, separate competition. ”In the Bundesliga, there has been nothing for the Frankfurt women to gain against Wolfsburg for years. The last impressions from games against the top teams in the Bundesliga do not bode well for the SGE. Only one point jumped out against the top four of the table - a draw at home against Hoffenheim.
In other respects, too, the Frankfurt women missed too many points against teams with fewer players in order to be able to achieve the goal of reducing the gap to the top. “We had different demands on ourselves and we know for ourselves that more should have been possible with our well-staffed team. But maybe it's not so bad that in the first year after the merger we were shown what we were still missing and what we had to work on, ”says Merle Frohms. Now she and her colleagues have to do 90-minute hard work in the final.