In the 106th minute of a pulsating but goalless match south of Madrid, Corina Schröder came on for Turbine Potsdam for the second period of extra time in the inaugural Women’s Champions League final.

“The first five minutes I was out of breath because I was kind of nervous,” Schröder said.

Half an hour later, she was a European champion as the flying Olympique Lyonnais winger she had been brought on to mark, Elodie Thomis, hit the crossbar with her sudden-death penalty. Schröder thus earned a unique place in history, a European Cup winner in two successive years, with two different clubs, in two different competitions. A year earlier she had been on the bench as her first club Duisburg beat Zvezda Perm over two legs in the last Women’s Cup, the Champions League forerunner.

A then European club record crowd for the second leg of 28,112 may have been one of the reasons UEFA decided to marry their men’s and women’s finals the following year. The quality of the 2010 final in Getafe and another five-figure crowd meant the Women’s Champions League Final was here to stay, part of a week-long Champions Festival in the host city that promotes girls and women as much as its Messis and Ronaldos.

“It was such a crazy game,” said Schröder. “I will never forget that in my whole life. If I have children, I will tell them about it. I think it was the highlight of my career.

“We had a big event in Potsdam where everyone celebrated [with]us, normally we would do an autograph session but we had to stop because so many people came.”

Potsdam and Lyon met again in the 2011 final, this time at Craven Cottage, London, a first women’s European match for many fans in this country. Now Lyon had their revenge, 2-0 winners. Schröder, once more an unused substitute, had her third medal but this time a silver one. “We weren’t good on that day.”

Schröder’s journey took her to England, which was “a new experience and to learn English,” where as one of the first wave of imports into a new Women’s Super League, she won the title twice with Liverpool but in common with every other English representative, there was no Champions League glory.

In European terms “we had loads of inexperienced players but there’s still something missing in these teams to win the Champions League.”

Currently injured, Schröder, now at Birmingham, is studying for an Economics degree and planning for a life after football. Tonight in Reggio Emilia, Lyon play in their fifth final in seven years against VfL Wolfsburg, their conquerors at Stamford Bridge in 2013.

Though both are two-time winners, only one will make history in northern Italy. Schröder knows Lyon’s strengths well and she picks out Louisa Necib. “As a number 10 she’s really good, technically really good and that suits Eugenie Le Sommer and Lotta Schelin, she can put them in really good positions.”

To add to the intrigue, two Champions League winners with Lyon, Lara Dickenmann and Elise Bussaglia, will line-up for Wolfsburg alongside Schröder’s former teammates. Schröder says that German international Babett Peter “reads the game really well,” Isabel Kerschowski is “a threat to the opposition because of her pace” while Alexandra Popp is “really good in the air, she has nearly everything.”

Unfortunately another, Nadine Kessler, the 2014 Uefa and Fifa Player of the Year, will not take part tonight, her playing days sadly ended by long-term injury which forced her retirement last month at the peak of her career.

Asked to pick a winner in Reggio Emilia, Schröder cites the injured Norwegian Caroline Hansen, scorer of Wolfsburg’s winner against the WSL champions Chelsea in Staines as “a big miss.”

“It will be a tough game” she says, but Schröder cannot help but back her countrywomen to repeat their 1-0 triumph of 2013. “I’m still German, I have to say that.”

 

*Originally published Morning Star Online England