National player Svenja Huth does not see the German footballers as having a duty to step into the breach for the troubled German men’s team at the World Cup.
“Many topics are brought to us from outside. They are not so present for us internally in the team. Also the indications that after the negative series of the men’s national team we are now the ones who should be the new highlight for the DFB. We don’t want that at all,” said the 32-year-old from VfL Wolfsburg in an interview with the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
“We stand for football. We want to push each other with the men and become a football power together,” emphasized the deputy DFB captain. Huth, who was European champion in 2013 and Olympic champion in 2016, emphasized: “We’re not looking anywhere, but we fight for our issues. That has nothing to do with equal pay, but with equal play. The framework conditions should be even better to further develop women’s football.” Players who no longer have to work 30 or 40 hours a week while playing football could train very differently.
The team of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg starts the tournament in Australia and New Zealand against Morocco on Monday in Melbourne. The other opponents in Group H are Colombia, who await the DFB team in Sydney on Sunday 30 July, and finally South Korea on 3 August. The men’s selection of the DFB was eliminated at the World Cup in Qatar after the preliminary round. In addition, the male U21 team failed in the group matches at the European Championship.