Bundesliga: RB Leipzig footballers close to relegation

Viola Odebrecht placed the laptop on her knees before the meeting with the “nd” in the press conference room of the RB Leipzig academy on Cottaweg; Immediately after the appointment, she has to dial into an online meeting with the German Football Association (DFB). There’s a lot to do at the moment for Odebrecht, who heads the women’s department at Rasenballsport and is already planning the new season at full speed. Next Monday (7.30 p.m.) a huge amount of pressure could be released for this work, which had built up in the Bundesliga in its debut year. In the third-to-last game of this season, ninth-placed RB can make it clear that they will stay in the league against fellow promoted and relegated candidate Nuremberg; One point is enough for that. “This will be applauded – whether internally in the club, in the team, in the functional team and also by me personally,” says Viola Odebrecht. »Relegation is a milestone for us. We experienced firsthand how difficult and challenging the first season in the Bundesliga is. A burden then falls off everyone involved.”

Coach Saban Uzun had preached from the start that it would take so long for the Leipzig women, who are used to success, to acclimatize in the upper house and find consistent play, but many in the club probably didn’t believe him. “Those were two completely different halves of this season,” says the 2003 world champion. “It took the team a relatively long time in the first half of the season to get into the Bundesliga and achieve what they were capable of. This was implemented much better in the second half. The first Bundesliga has a special force that we had to deal with at first.

The partly newly formed team was initially unable to cope with the increased physicality and was often thrown off course by bad phases and deficits. “In football, you prefer to be successful yesterday rather than today or tomorrow,” says coach Uzun on the phone. »We all had to be patient together, and we succeeded. But it wasn’t a big surprise to me that we found each other and stabilized in the second half of the season.

It was only after the winter break that the players acclimatized because, according to Odebrecht, “they accepted the fight. They realized that it was necessary to put 100 percent ambition into every duel and that you had to put all your strength into countering and intervening instead of just accompanying your opponents.” Many players have now “matured” when it comes to these basics. “Now we want to build on that and further develop RB Leipzig’s game idea and DNA, how we act with the ball on offense.”

But that will happen from June without coach Uzun. At the end of March, she decided together with the RB management that the contract with the promotion coach would not be extended. Above all, she consulted with Sebastian Schuppan, the ex-professional from Dynamo Dresden, who now works as a consultant for sports director Rouven Schröder and also looks after women’s concerns from the universe of men’s football. Odebrecht emphasizes that there are no solitary decisions. Instead, strategic steps like these are taken by the entire sports management team, including the coach. »We have openly formulated where we want to go. “It became clear that we had different ideas about how the team should shape its path over the next three to five years,” she now explains the decision. This needs to be put to the test every season. The separation is “multifactorial,” says Odebrecht, who otherwise comes across as pleasantly straightforward and somewhat awkward. The ideas about the further path of the RB women, which, like the men, should lead to the Champions League in the medium term, have just diverged.

But even coach Uzun cannot say exactly what the different ideas are. »A decision has been made that is legitimate and okay. It’s normal that people sometimes have different opinions when talking about the squad and new signings,” says the 36-year-old, who would have liked to have continued at RB. “You make progress when you discuss objectively and professionally – and it’s good when opposing ideas sometimes come together.” Only if these different ideas become more fundamental would further collaboration make “little sense,” he points out. From Uzun’s point of view, as you can hear between the lines, the separation was rather unexpected.

The successor has already been decided, even if Odebrecht doesn’t want to name a name. Just this much: The new coach must have a vision to continue the RB game principle – but differently than with the men, “because we are women and have different physiological requirements. Nevertheless, the DNA should not be lost.” Essentially, Uzun’s successor should tactically balance more precisely in which phases without possession of the ball the team presses together and when it lures the opponent and recovers from the strenuous style of play. How the teaching of pressing-counter-pressing football that Ralf Rangnick once brought to the RB clubs is improved and made capable of winning titles is also an eternal topic for men in Leipzig.

Odebrecht also wants to sharpen the transfer philosophy among women. “We want to fully exploit the potential of young players and develop them individually in their positions,” she says. “If you make individual players better, the implementation of the entire game idea will be better.” From now on, this must be more successful in order to continue to attract highly gifted talent to Leipzig in the future. In the second Bundesliga year, the team will only be strengthened in certain areas – for example with the young goalkeeper Lina von Schrader, who comes from Hoffenheim.

A much-discussed topic in the club is fundamentally improving the conditions for women. In the winter, Odebrecht criticized that the training conditions were in the lower midfield compared to the league. There would be too few lawns available; In the winter, the team has had to train on artificial turf. The criticism wasn’t well received by everyone in the club, but there will be improvements. “The club is working intensively and meticulously to find solutions with us and to raise women’s football to a different level, including in terms of infrastructure,” Odebrecht told “nd” today. We’ve already come a long way on many things, “and everyone agrees on the things where we still need to improve.”

Apart from a single game in the large stadium, which was seen by a good 10,000 fans, the women’s Bundesliga in Leipzig is still a niche product. “The people of Leipzig first have to really perceive us and know that we play in the Bundesliga – of course that also includes sporting success,” emphasizes Odebrecht. RB knows from the men: Enthusiasm in the city comes from an attractive style of play and success. But first they want to bring this season to a conciliatory and befitting end. If they manage to get three more points from the remaining three games, Leipzig would be the best promoted team in the last ten years. Even if only a few people notice it, it would definitely be a success.