Women's Bundesliga: What is still lacking at Eintracht Frankfurt

There are many indications that the cards in the Women's Football Bundesliga will be distributed after next weekend. That after the direct duels of the top 4 it is virtually clear who will be champion and who will be second, who will occupy the Champions League qualifying rank three and who will have to make do with the thankless fourth place. League leaders Bayern Munich host TSG Hoffenheim on Friday evening, while Eintracht Frankfurt host champions VfL Wolfsburg on Sunday afternoon (13:00 CET on hr television) at the Arena am Stadtwald.

This quartet is far ahead of the rest of the league in terms of quality and infrastructure, with Frankfurt and Hoffenheim still lagging behind the top two clubs that have shared the last ten league titles and eight cup triumphs. "It's no secret that one of the biggest sporting challenges you can have on the continent awaits us," said SGE coach Niko Arnautis ahead of the top match, which is marketed as a so-called "highlight game" in front of an expected crowd of more than 16,000 spectators. But it is not only from a sporting point of view that the challenge of getting closer to the level of the "Wolves", who won the first leg 5-0, is great.

Eintracht as an upstart

With the merger with the 1st FFC Frankfurt three years ago, Eintracht set out to enter this phalanx on sight. How far has the SBU come and what is still missing compared to VfL Wolfsburg? Knowing full well that the Lower Saxons have been a permanent guest of the European Cup for a decade, this year they are finalists and a power factor in international women's football, whereas the Hessians are an upstart. However, a fast-growing one.

This can be seen, for example, in some new signings for the coaching and support team. Various contracts with national players have been extended in recent months - the budget for the women's professional team is now likely to be over four million euros. There is no doubt that Wolfsburg are willing to pay a lot more for their select squad, but there are no longer any financial worlds between the two clubs.

Lone fighter Arnautis

There are significant differences in terms of structure and personnel. This is particularly evident among the leading minds. Ralf Kellermann has been in charge of VfL for some time now, as a highly respected director of women's football. The former Wolfsburg coach has many years of experience in top-level football, is well connected nationally and internationally, travels a lot and also tracks down talents abroad. A pedant to him and his abilities is missing at Eintracht. Until his retirement from the sporting director's post, Siegfried Dietrich was not someone who knew every up-and-coming player in Europe.

And his successor, Katharina Kiel, doesn't seem to work that way either. Because her appointment as technical director was accompanied by Arnautis also taking over the sporting director. But how is the 42-year-old supposed to manage this at a professionally sound level in terms of time alone? Especially since media work also rests on his shoulders, so to speak.

Exactly six months after starting work, the 31-year-old Kiel has neither been officially introduced nor has she made any detailed public statements outside of media reports that the club was able to control. In this way, job newcomer Kiel is not built up, but kept small. And this feeds the suspicion that those responsible do not yet trust her to represent the club to the outside world.

"The length of time they have been able to work at the highest level speaks for Wolfsburg," Arnautis said on Thursday afternoon. "The outstanding recent development makes us optimistic about the future that we will succeed in narrowing the gap." The coach believes that Eintracht can do that quickly "because of our possibilities".

There is a lack of quality in terms of breadth

In any case, in terms of foresight in squad planning, VfL is still clearly ahead of the SBU. While the Green-Whites announced four new signings in April and traditionally have planning security with almost all occupied places in the squad for the new season, the SBU has so far only informed about the signing of 20-year-old Lisanne Gräwe.

The talented midfielder will not be able to ensure that Eintracht achieve their big goal of advancing to the group stage of the Champions League. In order to get there and, above all, to survive there with an unaccustomed triple burden, the team needs far more quality across the board. Something that distinguishes the Wolfsburg women in particular. On the other hand, Eintracht only has predominantly young, inexperienced players from position 14 in the squad.

In the areas of junior staff, scouting, video analysis and in the field of medical care for the players, the SBU has recently invested and followed suit. The fact that the women's team has also been allowed to use the training ground at the arena, which was previously reserved only for male colleagues, for a few weeks now was an important step for the team.

Not least because he expresses appreciation for a team that is currently playing its second good Bundesliga season in a row. In the long run, however, it should also keep up with Wolfsburg, against whom it has not won a competitive game for exactly ten years.