The German footballers have struggled for a long time in the exhibition against Finland, but they go into the quarter-finals of the European Championship against Austria without conceding a single goal and with a lot of self-confidence.
The team of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg showed initial difficulties in the 3-0 (1-0) win in Milton Keynes on Saturday evening.
Sophia Kleinherne broke the spell with her first international goal (40th minute). Captain Alexandra Popp with her third goal in the third game (48th) and Joker Nicole Anyomi (63rd) scored in front of 20,721 spectators.
On Thursday, Germany in the Brentford Community Stadium is about the semi-finals. The game against Finland was meaningless for the table: the DFB women had already reached the first knockout round as leaders in Group B, the opponent had previously been eliminated. A possible German opponent in the semi-finals on the way to the hoped-for ninth European title is France.
“This is anything but a friendly game”
As in the 4-0 win against Denmark and 2-0 against Spain, the DFB women did not concede a goal. Goalkeeper Merle Frohms hardly got anything to do against harmless Finns. “It’s anything but a friendly game, it’s a European Championship game and we want to play it with a clear dominance,” Voss-Tecklenburg emphasized.
The German selection started with four new players. For the suspended Lena Oberdorf and Felicitas Rauch, Lena Lattwein (all VfL Wolfsburg) played on the six and Sophia Kleinherne from Frankfurt as a left-back. Central defender Sara Doorsoun (Eintracht Frankfurt) and Bayern midfielder Linda Dallmann also joined the starting line-up.
The attack by Popp, who again played up front for goal scorer Lea Schüller after her positive corona test, put pressure on from the start. The Wolfsburg player missed the first chance to head the ball after just 30 seconds. Above all, the lively Dallmann repeatedly tore gaps in the Finnish defense. But the last passes were all increasingly sloppy – and the shots on goal were far too harmless.
Kleinherne breaks the spell
Only the strong Kleinherne prevailed decisively from a short distance and celebrated the opening goal. After Anyomi and later Laura Freigang (both Eintracht Frankfurt) came in the second half, all field players from the squad can now show EM minutes.
Immediately after the restart, Popp headed Germany’s fifth goal of the tournament before Anyomi increased it to 3-0 with a low shot.
Austria’s national coach Irene Fuhrmann had already expressed her respect for the quarter-final opponent before the next German victory. “We know that Germany is superior and is currently performing extremely well,” said the 41-year-old after her team’s 1-0 win against Norway. However, the Austrians also saw on television how the game of the title candidate can be severely disrupted against Finland.