It’s not often that Bayern Munich are humbled, but after a 7-1 loss to Barcelona on the first matchday of the new Women’s Champions League group stage, the message was more coherent than the performance.
“We have to reflect on it and learn the right lessons from it,” said Germany international Klara Bühl.
“We have to learn from the game, stick together and move on,” said Bayern’s new coach Jose Barcala.
Such a heavy defeat is a shock to a side that has lost just two league games since 2023. Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper, said the result has the potential to “send shockwaves, not only through Munich, but also German women’s football as a whole.”
Though the size of the defeat is significant for the Bundesliga champions, many would suggest the shockwaves have been felt for some time.
Is Germany no longer among Europe’s elite?
Germany has not had a Champions League winner since FFC Frankfurt (now Eintracht Frankfurt) in 2015. The national team has not won a major tournament since the 2013 Euros. There is an increasing sense that Germany has been left behind in the explosion of the women’s game that began around the time of the 2019 World Cup.
Spain, the most recent World Cup winners, and Barcelona, who have been in six of the last seven Champions League finals, winning three, are the opposite. The country was barely on the elite women’s football map a decade ago and is now streets ahead of Germany, as national team coach Christian Wück recently reflected.
Christian Wück’s Germany lost to Spain in the semifinal of Euro 2025Image: Bernd Feil/MIS/IMAGO
“The Spanish women don’t think about these basics anymore. They play as if it were second nature. We need to train intensively (to get to that point),” he said.
Is German women’s football suffering a talent drain?
Training is all very well. But increasingly, the Bundesliga is seeing a talent exodus, particularly of Germany’s best players. Sydney Lohmann (Manchester City), Sjoeke Nüsken (Chelsea) and Jule Brand (Lyon) have all departed for more money, bigger crowds and a better chance of European success.
Whether playing abroad for clubs stacked with talent or trying to make it at home in Germany, the problem for the country’s best players is playing enough.
“The development in this important area is too slow for my liking. Playing time is definitely not high. Some national team players don’t play enough at their clubs, not only in the women’s Bundesliga, but also abroad,” Wück said.
The 52-year-old called on coaches to trust younger players more in the Bundesliga in order to help themselves and the national team.
“We can only do this together. We need to find ways to give our players playing time. We need coaches who have the courage to bring in young players and give them time,” Wück said, echoing a similar plea from Germany men’s coach, Julian Nagelsmann.
Lena Oberdorf is the only player to move to a German club for a significant transfer fee in recent yearsImage: Hansjürgen Britsch/Baumann/IMAGO
Wück was broadly complimentary about Germany’s top flight, but it is clear that it is struggling to keep up financially with other leagues. Aside from German midfielder Lena Oberdorf’s €400,000 move from Wolfsburg to Bayern last year (joint 14th), no German club has paid any of the top 50 women’s transfer fees of all time.
Is Bundesliga helping or hindering Bayern?
After the Barcelona defeat, the questions that often follow the men’s team are starting to be raised for the women: is the Bundesliga a competitive and lucrative enough league for even its biggest club to succeed in Europe?
Bayern have won three Bundesliga titles in a row, but have failed to get past the quarterfinals of the Champions League since 2021. Whatever is working at home, isn’t working in Europe.
“I think a chance for Germany to make up the gap to other leagues can be to focus on the newer talents. Obviously, we then have to try to keep them in the Bundesliga, but it’s the same in the men’s football,” said Jessica Stommel, the head of women’s football at SPORTFIVE, a sports marketing agency that works with 14 women’s teams in Germany, told DW.
“It doesn’t always have to be just paying millions of transfer fees to buy the best players, because this is also not sustainable.”
It’s a model that is improving the chasing pack slowly but surely — Frankfurt were just a point of second last season — but being the breeding ground for young talent just won’t do at Bayern. Neither will another 7-1 loss. While one game rarely defines a season, both Bayern Munich and women’s football in Germany will need to find some answers soon if they’re to stand a chance of keeping up with the rest of Europe.
Edited by: Jonathan Harding
