A season of highs, lows, remarkable moments and big celebrations is now behind FC Bayern Women. While Alexander Straus’s team remained unbeaten in the Google Pixel Bundesliga to retain their title, the Munich ladies came up short of a domestic double with a final defeat in the DFB Cup. fcbayern.com summarises the 2023/24 campaign for you.
11 new arrivals for defending champions
After lifting the Bundesliga in 2023, Bayern strengthened the squad to underline their ambitions in wanting to defend their crown. As well as Pernille Harder and Magdalena Eriksson from Chelsea, FCB also signed Katharina Naschenweng (Hoffenheim), Anna Wellmann (Turbine Potsdam), Jill Baijings (Bayer Leverkusen), Samantha Kerr (Rangers), Ines Belloumou (Montpellier), Erin Nayler (Norrköping) and Ana María Guzmán (Deportivo Pereira) in the summer. Natalia Padilla Bidas joined from Servette but was loaned out to fellow Bundesliga club Köln. During the winter break, Linda Sembrant moved to Munich on loan from Juventus. The 37-year-old Swede has since signed a new deal with Bayern to remain until the end of next season.
There were no changes in any coaching roles during the summer, with Straus remaining at the helm. One alteration did come during the year, though, when Moritz Volz succeeded Marco Knirsch as assistant.
DFB Cup
Pernille Harder scored her first goal for Bayern on her competitive debut.
Bayern’s first competitive fixture of the new season saw them kick off their DFB Cup campaign with a 2-0 win away at second division Andernach. Harder opened her goalscoring account on her debut. Die Frauen then saw off lower-league Kickers Offenbach (6-0) in the second round and Carl Zeiss Jena of the second tier in the quarters (3-0). FCB then faced league rivals Frankfurt in the semis, with the game remaining tied at 1-1 after 120 minutes, before Mala Grohs emerged as the hero with three saves in the penalty shootout to send Bayern to Cologne.
Mala Grohs saved three penalties in the DFB Cup semi-final shootout.
Captain Glódis Viggósdóttir led her team out at a sold-out RheinEnergieStadion against rivals Wolfsburg, who claimed a 2-0 win to deny Bayern in the cup once again.
Champions League
Bayern drew with Roma in their opening Champions League group game.
Bayern were handed a tough draw in the group stage of the Champions League with Roma, Paris Saint-Germain and Ajax the opponents. Things started well, with four points from the opening two games. It took an added-time equaliser from Roma to deny Straus and his team victory in a 2-2 draw on Matchday 1, before a 1-0 win in France against PSG.
Sydney Lohmann and Bayern managed only a point from their two games against Ajax, meaning they missed out on the knockout stage.
The following two games were back-to-back encounters with Dutch champions Ajax, with a 1-1 home draw and 1-0 away loss proving a big setback. It meant the Munich ladies were under pressure going to Rome, where Lea Schüller snatched a 2-2 draw in the 96th minute and ensured they went into the final matchday with their fate still in their own hands. It meant a win was a must in the last game against PSG at the FC Bayern Campus if they were to qualify for the quarter-finals.
Bayern started well and went ahead through Giulia Gwinn. Die Frauen responded well again to Paris’s equaliser and struck back through Sydney Lohmann. However, the last and decisive goal came from the visitors, meaning Bayern bowed out in the group stage.
Bundesliga
Bayern’s impressive record in the Bundesliga read 19 wins, three draws and not a single defeat. The Munich ladies also scored 60 goals and conceded just eight over those 22 games – both league bests. That form saw the title wrapped up with two games to go after a 2-1 victory in Leverkusen.
Bayern also set a new attendance record in the Women’s Bundesliga back in October when they played a league game at the Allianz Arena for the first time. A crowd of 19,000 watched the 0-0 draw with Frankfurt.
Like last season, the heart of this Bayern team was captain Viggósdóttir. The 28-year-old Iceland international played the full 90 minutes in 21 out of the 22 league assignments, being given a brief breather in the second half of the 6-0 win against RB Leipzig. The centre-back spent a total of 1,948 minutes on the pitch, out of a possible 1,980.
Captain Glódís Viggósdóttir started every Bundesliga game in 2023/24.
The team’s top scorer also remained the same as 2022/23, with Schüller leading the way on 11 goals. The team’s 60 strikes this term came from 13 different players, while Klara Bühl was the best provider with 11 assists.
At the back, Bayern were solid throughout the campaign. The only game where they conceded more than once was in the opening 2-2 draw in Freiburg. Goalkeeper Grohs started 21 of the 22 games, keeping 14 clean sheets in Bayern’s title defence.
The team recently signed their names in Munich’s Golden Book:
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