FC Bayern Women against Cologne: DFB regulations annoy Straus! Why Guzman is not in the squad

FC Bayern Women will face 1. FC Köln in the Bundesliga on Saturday. Not there: Ana Maria Guzman. The 19-year-old is not allowed to be in the squad due to DFB regulations – to the annoyance of coach Alexander Straus.

The women of FC Bayern Munich will play against 1. FC Cologne on Saturday. Alexander Straus’ team will defend their lead in the Bundesliga. Ana Maria Guzman is not there. According to DFB regulations, the 19-year-old is not allowed to be in the reigning champions’ squad.

Much to the annoyance of Straus, who is upset about the relevant regulation – more precisely, Section 14 of the DFB game regulations. This means that after playing in a championship game for a women’s Bundesliga representative, a player is only eligible to play for another team from her club after a protection period of 48 hours. And the other way around too.

Specifically, this means: Since Ana Maria Guzman was used in the catch-up game against VfL Bochum on October 3rd, she is not eligible to play against 1. FC Köln in the Bundesliga on Saturday and is therefore not an option for the squad.

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An absurdity for Straus. The same problem also applies in the opposite case, which is why the Norwegian always has to carefully weigh up his considerations for line-ups and substitutions: which is better for a player, 15 minutes for the first or better within the next or previous 48 hours in the second Get league playing time?

A difficult undertaking. Because while the professionals have to win every game, it’s also about developing players. Which raised another question at the press conference during the week: Why are things actually going so badly at the second agency?

It is an unusual picture to see FC Bayern Munich at the bottom of the table with no points or goals. But it is the bitter reality in the second women’s Bundesliga. New coach Jérôme Reisacher’s team has had a bad start to the season and is already four points behind on the safe side, SG 99 Andernach is eleventh in the table.

But the truth is that the table in the second division is somewhat distorted. For example, while Andernach has already played 5 games, the Reisacher team and the youngsters from Freiburg have only played three games.

The reason for this is the U20 World Cup, which only ended in September and in which three FC Bayern Munich players were in action: Sarah Ernst, Laura Gloning and Alara Şehitler. The DFB team reached the quarter-finals in Colombia and lost 3-1 on penalties to the USA team in a dramatic game.

Laura Gloning is one of the great talents of the second team.

(Photo: Sven Beyrich | El Loko Photo)

Now one could of course argue that other clubs also released players; SC Freiburg, for example, had to do without Bundesliga players Cora Zicai and Alina Axtmann. But the situation in Munich is different, as Alexander Straus explained in a press conference on Friday.

The Norwegian referred to the fact that the Munich team had one of the youngest teams in the league and would sometimes compete with a squad of teenagers. The average age is only raised when professionals like goalkeeper Ana Wellmann get match practice or when FCB legend Jana Kappes (born in 1996) is on the pitch.

“Results are not important,” said Straus, adding that it was more important to develop players for the professionals. He specifically mentioned Luzie Zähringer as an example, who was already able to get a taste of the second division at the tender age of 16. Straus made it clear that match practice was the most important thing at this age and that this was the only way to prepare the players for higher tasks.

His goal is to find a new Sydney Lohmann: an academy player who can make the path from youth to professionals. Straus confirmed that his former assistant coach Reisacher was doing “a top job” and that it was very difficult to compete against ambitious teams with such a young team.

And in the worst case, says Straus, you might have to accept relegation. Because “If you keep losing, you don’t learn anything,” is how the Norwegian summed up. And Straus suggested whether this development might not be the worst thing for German football.

What does Straus mean? In Norway it is unusual for a second team to have the quality for a place in the second highest division. For the overall level of football, it would perhaps be better if clubs like Bochum or Gladbach played for promotion (since they are also entitled to promotion) and thus the differences in quality between the first and second Bundesliga could be reduced.

Even if everything doesn’t (yet) go according to plan with the second representative, the Norwegian doesn’t get upset.

Without Ana Maria Guzman and the suspended captain Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir, FC Bayern will face the still winless 1. FC Köln on Saturday at 2 p.m. on their home campus. The game will be live at Magenta sports and DAZN transmitted.