When Jovana Damnjanović and Georgia Stanway emulated Harry Kane against Werder Bremen

UPDATE: The match has been postponed due to the state of the pitch in Bremen.

FC Bayern Women can look back fondly on recent encounters with Werder Bremen. There was last May’s DFB Cup final in Cologne, where the Munich Frauen lifted the trophy for the first time since 2012 and secured the first domestic double in their history. And the latest meeting in the first half of this season was another happy occasion, winning 4-0 at the FC Bayern Campus.

For Jovana Damnjanović and Georgia Stanway, though, memories go far beyond those two fixtures. They’ll forever be associated with two special moments, two special finishes two years ago that momentarily turned football into poetry.

A dreary Monday night

A crowd of 2,500 had come to the Campus on a Monday evening in April 2024 to watch a Bundesliga fixture against Bremen. They saw a somewhat drab first half as Werder sat back and defended with discipline, while Bayern struggled to find a breakthrough. The game almost had the feeling of a practice match and threatened to pass unnoticed into the archives. That was until the 48th minute and a corner that was met by Magdalena Eriksson to open the scoring. It put Bayern on course for what felt like being a mandatory, run-of-the-mill victory. But the action would soon burst into life.

Damnjanović copies Kane

Ten minutes later came the moment for which the match will be remembered. Damnjanović, famed for her physicality and positional play inside the box, found herself inside her own half as Bayern won the ball. The Serbian striker looked up and saw her chance. A good 50 metres out, without hesitating and just backing herself, she imagined the flight of the ball.

Her strike depicted a work of art. The ball took flight. Goalkeeper Livia Peng, well out of her area, could only look on as she thanklessly backpedalled. She knew she wasn’t going to get there as the ball sailed over her and hit the back of the net. Time for the celebrations as everyone took in what they’d just seen.

But the highlights reel wasn’t complete there, this time with Stanway taking centre stage. The 90 minutes were up as the midfielder picked up the ball in the centre circle, lifted her head and had exactly the same thought as Damnjanović. And it produced the same result, as the ball flew through the Munich night sky.

Again, Peng scrambled to get back in her goal but could only watch on – like everyone else at the Campus – in astonishment as such a rare feat was achieved twice in one night.

📽️ Watch Damnjanović and Stanway’s goals again:

That 3-0 victory felt like more than just three more points on the road to winning the title. Harry Kane had produced an almost identical goal in the men’s 8-0 win over Darmstadt the previous October. That was named Bayern’s 2023/24 Goal of the Season. Damnjanović and Stanway both produced their best replicas, both in the same game.

Next reunion

Those goals and the cup victory mean Werder hold a special place in Bayern’s recent history. Points and results will one day be forgotten, but not those hugely memorable finishes back in April 2024. Bayern now face Bremen once again on Monday evening. What stories will this famous fixture write this time?

🏟️✨ FC Bayern Women will host their home leg of the Champions League quarter-finals at the Allianz Arena – get your tickets here!