Aileen Poese sounded sober when asked what the next goals for the season were. Disillusioned because the biggest goal was already done on Saturday: the championship in the Northeast Regional Football League and promotion to the second Bundesliga. And that in the first game of the second half of the season, with twelve games left.
Because of the 3:4 defeat of Poese’s team against Viktoria Berlin, the girls from Köpenick are now seven points behind their opponents on Saturday and have already played one game more. “We’re not going away from our plan, we want to win every game, from now on we’ll continue,” says Poese. “And then we will prepare properly for the next season. If Viktoria, Türkiyem somehow stumbles, we still want to be there.”
The fact that Union’s trainer is already talking about next season shows that she no longer really believes in reaching first place, which, in addition to the championship, also means participating in the promotion relegation to the second division. The dominance of the first three teams, Viktoria, Union and Türkiyemspor, is too big this season for that. All other teams in the league are barely able to keep up. This is shown by Viktoria’s goal difference of 85:11 goals, which has only lost once. Against Union at the start of the season.
You can’t do it on your own, that’s for sure. It seems unlikely that Viktoria will fail several times, although it is possible, as captain Stephanie Gerken repeatedly emphasized.
But even if Union will probably miss promotion this season, the development of the team from Köpenick is clearly pointing upwards. The response was also positive with 800 spectators on Saturday at the Fritz-Lesch sports field in Adlershof. “The entire game, the entire event was also an advertisement for women’s football in Berlin,” says Poese.
But it won’t be any easier for Union next season, even if Viktoria should prevail in the relegation against the northern champions and disappear into the second division. Due to Türkiyemspor’s ambitions and the planned cooperation between Hertha 03 Zehlendorf and Hertha BSC, there will also be powerful teams in the regional league next season. That’s good for football in Berlin, but again presents Union with a major challenge.
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