Before the big European Championship final in Wembley, the DFB women are relaxed. Captain Alexandra Popp shows it with a special accessory.
Alexandra Popp is obviously very relaxed before the European Championship final of the German soccer team against England. The captain came to the press conference on Friday afternoon with a mustache glued on and a baseball cap turned inside out – the satirical magazine Postillon and the FUMS portal showed her on Twitter and wrote that she should also go to the men’s World Cup as “Alexander Bopp”.
“We joked around at breakfast and said we’d do it,” said the top German striker about her disguise: “That’s why Lina Magull is sitting back there, she didn’t want to believe it.”
Popp: “It will be extremely intense”
The German Football Association (DFB) has “good physios with kinesiotape, I quickly cut my mustache from it”. But the men’s World Cup in winter will probably not work: “I’m still in the Champions League…”
On Sunday (6 p.m./in the live ticker on t-online) things will get serious in London’s Wembley Stadium. Popp is the first player in tournament history to score in five consecutive finals appearances: she wants to continue doing so. “It’s going to be extremely intense physically and mentally,” Popp said. The 31-year-old is also up for the title of top scorer against Beth Mead (both six goals).
Her teammate can hardly wait for the finale in front of almost 90,000 fans. “We’d love to play straight away. You don’t know what to do with your emotions,” said defender Kathrin Hendrich from VfL Wolfsburg. “Wembley are always outstanding, there’s always a lot of prestige at stake – there’s nothing cooler.”
For the German national team it is about the ninth European Championship title. England are hoping for their first triumph since the men’s World Cup title in 1966.