Alexandra Popp and BVB drop to 3. Liga – MSV await reunion | OneFootball

Olympic champion and the national team’s third-highest scorer Alexandra Popp’s move to BVB has been known for some time. Only since yesterday does she know that with Borussia Dortmund she will have to compete in the Regionalliga West, the third-highest division. That has sparked little enthusiasm from Popp and BVB, while her former club MSV Duisburg is looking forward to seeing her again.

BVB’s women had more than done their homework on this final matchday of the Regionalliga West. They cruised to an emphatic 8:0 win over Vorwärts Spoho Köln yesterday on home turf, with Schwarzgelb already leading 5:0 at halftime. But their hopes of a slip-up by league leaders 1. FC Köln II, who were two points ahead, did not come true on this final matchday. The Cologne side secured the championship with a 2:0 win away to Borussia Mönchengladbach’s reserve team and with it the only promotion spot to the 2. Bundesliga.

That means it has been clear since early yesterday afternoon that Alexandra Popp will now have to play in this very Regionalliga West, where BVB will remain for at least one more season. For a world-class player like Alexandra Popp, with 67 goals in 145 international appearances as well as numerous top finishes at major tournaments, that is certainly not a particularly exciting prospect.

Photo: IMAGO

Popp to play in the third tier with BVB

So instead of playing in a nationwide competition, Popp will now be playing in a regionally limited league. And by coincidence, this is exactly the season in which the women of MSV Duisburg are promoted to it. After the “Zebras” were withdrawn from the Bundesliga in 2024 due to a lack of funds following the men’s team’s relegation to the fourth tier, they have now already secured the Niederrheinliga title before the final matchday after resuming operations there.

Alexandra Popp, who was born in Witten and therefore grew up quite close to her future base at Stadion Rote Erde, played for FCR Duisburg in the Bundesliga between 2008 and 2012 and developed there into a national team player. FCR Duisburg was absorbed into MSV Duisburg in 2013 as a new women’s department because of impending insolvency, and the team still trains — and usually plays — at that very site on Mündelheimer Straße where Alexandra Popp was also active back then.

So now there will be a reunion with this early chapter of her biography — one Popp, at least from a sporting perspective, would surely have preferred to avoid. The upcoming Regionalliga schedule for the 2025/26 season will show when the new superstar of BVB’s women’s team will return to her old stomping ground, once home to FCR Duisburg, now MSV Duisburg.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.