Almost three months before the European Championship in England, the question mark is suddenly huge again: Where does German women’s football stand in international comparison?
The surprising first defeat in the World Cup qualifier at 2: 3 in Serbia threw the DFB selection back.
National coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg drew up a long list of deficiencies for her players in Stara Pazova, and not just for the weak initial phase: “Staggeringly, that continued for 90 minutes.” Captain Alexandra Popp tried a change of perspective. “Better now than at the European Championships or anywhere else,” said the woman from Wolfsburg defiantly. “Who knows what it’s good for in the end.”
“What do we take with us?”
Voss-Tecklenburg found it difficult to hide her horror at the performance. “Of course you don’t like going into a six-week break with a loss,” said the 54-year-old. While still in the dressing room, she said to the players: “That’s our thing, we have to endure it, stand up and ask: So, what can we learn from it? What do we take with us?”
The European Championship from July 6th to 31st is the first major tournament for the record European champion and two-time world champion since the 2019 World Cup quarter-finals against Sweden and the missed Olympic qualification. At the Arnold Clark Cup in February, the Germans remained without a win against Spain, Canada and hosts England. However, due to a dozen failures, this was only of limited use as an endurance test.
The ticket for the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand should not be a problem given the remaining program with games in Turkey and Bulgaria in September. The disappointing impression against the robust, passionate and straightforward attacking Serbs around the two-time goalscorer Jovana Damnjanovic from FC Bayern Munich sticks for the time being. In their strong European Championship preliminary round group, the DFB team must be prepared for similar resistance against Denmark, Spain and Finland.
Too much reverse play
“All in all, there were just too many things,” Voss-Tecklenburg said of her criticisms. Among other things, she criticized “too much backwards play overall”, a “very, very high error rate”, especially with the goals conceded, the structure of the game, the tackle rate, the bad switching moments. “First and foremost, it has to be about mentality, about strength in a duel and toughness,” she continued. “The performance today was not good in very, very many areas.” The goals of Munich’s Lea Schüller (60th) and Wolfsburg’s Tabea Wassmuth (90th + 2) didn’t help much.
“We have to look at our own noses. In principle, it was just not enough, both defensively and offensively,” admitted Popp. The 31-year-old striker was in the starting XI for the first time since her long injury break, but did not do well in midfield. “I also missed emotional leaders on the pitch today,” said the national coach.
From a group of about 35 European Championship candidates, Voss-Tecklenburg will now nominate 28 for the extended squad for England on May 16th. After a test match on June 24, this should be reduced to 23 players. The first thing to do now is: “Shake, work, don’t despair, but still address things clearly.”