BVB women claim hard-fought win over Freudenberg

The Borussia Dortmund women's footballers won their home game against SV Fortuna Freudenberg II 3-0 (1-0) on Matchday 8. Ana Louisa Haslsteiner, Marjana Naceva and Merle Greulich scored the goals for the league leaders.

Three goals - three points. The BVB women defended pole position in the Landesliga in front of their home supporters at the Football Academy. Nonetheless, Sulewski's charges experienced some difficulties against the eighth-placed team from Freudenberg.

The Borussia ladies started with three changes compared to the previous week, with Nora Rechenbach, Ana Louisa Haslsteiner and Lea Auffenberg replacing Virginia Glänzer, Danelle Tan and Mandy Reinhardt. Haslsteiner justified her inclusion after only four minutes when she scored an early opener - the 28-year-old's 50th competitive goal in a BVB shirt. However, the visitors were by no means shocked, pressed early and the BVB defence faced several challenges in holding onto their narrow lead up until the break. "It was an open exchange. We were too nervous in our build-up play, the opponent pressed us and we had problems with that," BVB coach Thomas Sulewski said in summary of the first period.

After the interval, the Black & Yellows embraced the fight, settled into the game better and created goalscoring chances. But the BVB women had to wait until the 68th-minute to get the all-important goal for 2-0, Marjana Naceva converting on the follow-up after a Marie Grothe shot had been saved. Merle Greulich rounded off the scoring at 3-0 by prodding an outstanding through-ball from Naceva over the line (69). "We have to get used to the physically strong opponents in this league and stand up to them. We motivated each other and performed much better in the second half," commented goalscorer Haslsteiner.

The table-toppers will continue their campaign on Sunday 22 October with an away game against Sportfreunde Sümmern.

BVB women: Schröer - Tayeh, Jung, Rechenbach, Geldschläger - Becker- Greulich (Lau, 82), Grothe (Kaul, 84), Haslsteiner (Tan, 74), Auffenberg (Reinhardt, 62) - Naceva (Kuhl, 82)

Goals: 1-0 Haslsteiner (4), 2-0 Naceva (68), 3-0 Greulich (79)

(df)