Turbine Completes Double, Wins UEFA Women’s Champions League

It took 120 minutes and penalty kicks, but Germany’s Turbine Potsdam was crowded the winner of the inaugural UEFA Women’s Champions League, defeating France’s Lyon on Thursday in Madrid.

The two clubs played a scoreless regulation and extra time, the draw allowing Turbine `keeper Anna Felicitas Sarholz to take center stage, one round after a semifinal performance against Duisburg where Sarholz saved three of four attempts in a penalty shootout, putting the Frauen-Bundesliga champions into the final.

On Thursday, Sarholz registered two more saves and added a goal of her own, though her goalkeeping exploits were matched by Lyon `keeper Sarah Bouhaddi, eventually sending the shootout into an eighteenth round. Then, Lyon’s Élodie Thomas put her kick off the crossbar, giving Turbine the league-cup double.

It is Turbine’s first European title since 2004-05, when they won the UEFA Women’s Cup, the Champions League’s predecessor. They join fellow multiple-European titlists Frankfurt (Germany) and Umea (Sweden).

The victory comes off a season in the German league that saw them finish five points ahead of Duisburg for the title, their second in a row. While the team has a number of prominent German internationals - Fatmir Bajramaj, Anja Mittag, Babett Peter, Jennifer Zeitz, Bianca Schmidt - Duisburg has ascended to the top of the European game with youth. Only three of the fourteen players they featured on Thursday are over 23 years old.

For Lyon, it was the third year in a row they had gotten as far as the semifinals, though it was their first finals appearance. They came close to an early lead through Louisa Nécib, who put an early free kick off the woodwork. After at least one more near chance in the first half, Lyon began to succumb to Turbine’s pressure, relying on strong play from Bouhaddi to take them to kicks.

Duisburg’s win marked the third time a German team had won the Bundesliga and the European championship.