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.