"We are through to the next round and nobody is injured, that's most important thing. The result sounds closer than the game actually was. Somehow it was a typical Pokal game with lots of shots against the woodwork and a keeper who excelled herself. Overall, we took the game very seriously and full of respect and we created a lot of chances down the flanks," said Pätzold: "We denied KSC any chances on the break and used the space available to us. Unfortunately the quality of our crosses and the decisions with the final ball weren't always good and the set-pieces weren't so good this time either." In addition, he praised the Karlsruhe team who "defended passionately and with great courage."
The coach made two changes to his line-up compared with the hard-fought 3-2 win away to SC Freiburg in the opening match in the Google Pixel Women's Bundesliga. Emilie Bragstad started in central defence in place of Lilla Turanyi, and in attack Estrella Merino Gonzalez came in for teammate Caroline Kehrer.
The Leverkusen women were on the front foot from the kick-off in drizzly conditions and they were soon camped in the opposition half. The first chance on goal fell to Juliette Vidal whose header from a cross from the left tested the KSC keeper Gabriella Heid (4’). Two minutes later, Katharina Piljic tried her luck with a powerful long-range effort. With ten minutes on the clock, Cornelia Kramer just failed to connect with a low cross from Karolina Lea Vilhjalmsdottir.
After the opening 15 minutes the play was all in one direction. Janou Levels hit the side netting on 15 minutes. Shortly after that came the breakthrough: Synne Skinnes Hansen hit a high cross from the right into the middle of the box where Kögel was in the right place to give Bayer 04 the lead with a tap-in (24'). Again from the left, Levels just failed to double the lead on the half-hour mark with a curled effort. The next long-range shot from Vilhjalmsdottir four minutes later was too centrally placed. Kögel missed the chance to double her tally two minutes before half-time. Her whipped-in cross was heading goalwards but the Karlsruher keeper stretched out her arm at the right time to keep the ball out of the top corner of the net.
There were no changes at the start of the second half. The Werkself again started with a well hit cross but the ball from Merino Gonzalez went begging. Pätzold made a double substitution on the hour mark: Merino Gonzalez and Vidal made way for Kehrer and Julie Jorde. Kehrer was involved straightaway. Her close-range shot was just kept out by Heid (61'). The ensuing Levels corner was headed over by Vilhjalmsdottir.
The Regional League side refused to give up and again and again broke up the build-up play of the Bundesliga team. Full-back Levels failed to beat the keeper after a good move from the visitors (69'). The following corner presented the Bayer 04 Women with the next double chance: First, Vilhjalmsdottir headed against the post and then Heid pulled off another impressive save from Kehrer. The desired 2-0 lead for Leverkusen came from an own goal scored by Beck. The defender was unable to get out of the way of a hard cross from Skinnes Hansen (72’).
The favourites, playing all in white, pressed to seal the result. Kehrer hit the woodwork with a shot against the post and seconds later Heid saved again to keep out a close-range effort from Kramer (75'). For the final 15 minutes, Shen Menglu came on for Vilhjalmsdottir and Delice Boboy (for Kramer) made her debut for Bayer 04. Kögel first failed to beat Heid (81’) and then hit another shot against the post (83’) in more chances to score her second goal. The opposition keeper also denied Boboy her debut goal (89') just before the final whistle. The match ended with a 2-0 scoreline.
The draw for the Round of 16 in the DFB Pokal will be made on Monday, 16 September from 20.30 CEST. The next match for the Werkself is on Sunday, 15 September (14.00 CEST, live on MagentaSport and DAZN) against Eintracht Frankfurt in the first Bundesliga home game of this season at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium. Tickets for the match are on open sale HERE.
Match stats:
Karlsruher SC: Heid - Beck, Drexler, Häfele, Beck, Michelfelder (Schneider 79') - Rothenberger (Amann 86'), Züfle - Dillmann (Veljija 86'), Zweigner-Genzer (Graumann 59'), Blust (Waibel 59')
Bayer 04: Repohl - Skinnes Hansen, Ostermeier, Bragstad, Levels - Piljic, Vidal (Jorde 59') - Vilhjalmsdottir (Menglu 76'), Kögel (Mickenhagen 88') - Merino Gonzalez (Kehrer 59'), Kramer (Boboy 76')
Goals: 0-1 Kögel (24’), 0-2 Beck (72’ o.g.)
Yellow cards: - Menglu
Referee: Alessia Jochum (Riegelsberg)
Attendance: 500 at the Arthur Beier Stadium
Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, he holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for the club (401) and is the only Bayer 04 player to have won both the UEFA Cup (1988) and the DFB Pokal (1993). And the Berliner stayed with the Werkself after ending his impressive playing career as he worked as a goalkeeping coach for the following nine years. Vollborn now works under the Bayer Cross as a fan liaison officer and club archivist. Since February 2021, the personalised Black and Red lexicon takes Werkself fans under the heading of 'Rudi recounts...' on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month…
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