VfL Wolfsburg Frauen · History

Women’s football in Wolfsburg began in 1973, when VfR Eintracht Wolfsburg set up a women’s section. That side is the origin of VfL Wolfsburg Frauen, which has carried the name since 1 July 2003, when VfL Wolfsburg took the squad in as its own department. Along the way it played under three clubs, dropped to the second tier and came close to folding. Later it won seven Bundesliga titles, eleven German Cups and two Champions League trophies.

The VfR Eintracht years

The team first made its mark in the German Cup in the 1980s. In 1984 it reached the final as VfR Eintracht Wolfsburg and lost 2-0 to SSG 09 Bergisch Gladbach, the dominant side of the era. In 1990 it was one of the founding members of the Frauen-Bundesliga, which was then split into two divisions, and it played in the northern group for the next few seasons. Things went wrong in 1997. That year the league became a single division, the team failed to qualify, and VfR Eintracht was in serious financial trouble.

The WSV Wendschott spell

With VfR Eintracht facing insolvency, the section moved to WSV Wendschott and played in the Regionalliga as WSV Wolfsburg. The 1996-97 season had already produced a remarkable line: 121 goals scored, one conceded and a single defeat all year. In the Regionalliga the team won the northern division and then the promotion round, which took it back to the top flight. On 1 July 2003 it joined VfL Wolfsburg, the Volkswagen-backed club, and finished eighth in 2003-04, its first season under the new badge.

Relegation, promotion and Kellermann

In 2005 the team finished bottom and went down to the 2. Bundesliga Nord. It stayed only one year: in 2006 it won the division and returned to the top flight. The turning point came in summer 2008, when Ralf Kellermann was appointed head coach. He held the job until 2017. Progress was gradual: fifth in 2009-10, then league runners-up in 2011-12, the last step before the titles came. In those years the team played its home games at the VfL-Stadion am Elsterweg, its ground until the end of 2014.

The 2013 treble and Europe in 2014

The 2012-13 season was the breakthrough. Wolfsburg won their first Bundesliga, their first German Cup and, in London, the UEFA Women’s Champions League, beating Olympique Lyonnais 1-0 in the final. They were the second German side to complete the treble, after 1. FFC Frankfurt. In 2013-14 they kept the league title after a final-day decider against Frankfurt watched by 12,464 people, the league’s best-attended match up to that point. The league drew 32,261 spectators that season, an average of 2,933 per game. In May 2014 came a second Champions League, won 4-3 against Sweden’s Tyresö in the final in Lisbon. The IFFHS named Wolfsburg the world’s best women’s club in 2013 and 2014.

Ten straight cups and four European finals

The team has played at the AOK Stadion, which holds 5,200, since 2015. That year also began a run never seen before in the German Cup: Wolfsburg won it ten times in a row, from 2015 to 2024, for eleven in all counting 2013. They also won four league titles in a row between 2017 and 2020. In Europe, Lyon beat them in three finals: in 2016 in Reggio Emilia (1-1, lost 4-3 on penalties), in 2018 in Kyiv (4-1 after extra time) and in 2020 in San Sebastián (3-1). Kellermann left the bench in 2017 to become sporting director, and his assistant Stephan Lerch coached the team until June 2021.

The Tommy Stroot era

Tommy Stroot replaced Lerch in 2021. In his first season, 2021-22, Wolfsburg won their seventh Bundesliga title and another cup. On 3 June 2023 they played their sixth Champions League final, in Eindhoven, and lost 3-2 to FC Barcelona. Cup wins in 2023 and 2024 completed the run of ten. In 2025 the trophy went to Bayern Munich. A year later Wolfsburg reached the final again and lost 4-0 to Bayern on 14 May 2026 in Cologne, in front of 46,064 spectators.