National coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg also sees the games at the European Football Championship as a learning curve “on our way to the future”.
The EM tournament is a snapshot, “but it is also enormously important for us in terms of perspective,” said the 54-year-old before the last group game of the DFB women against Finland on Saturday (9 p.m. CEST/ZDF and DAZN) in Milton Keynes.
There are still World Cup qualifiers in Turkey and Bulgaria for the record European champions in September. Despite the recent defeat in Serbia, the DFB is counting on taking part in the tournament in Australia and New Zealand in 2023. Germany was in the quarter-finals of the 2019 World Cup in France failed to Sweden and thus also missed the Olympic Games.
“Keep optimizing and improving”
“We know that we want to have more possession of the ball under pressure. We want to keep optimizing and improving,” said Voss-Tecklenburg, referring to the 2-0 win over Spain, which brought her team to the early quarter-finals at the European Championship .
Next Thursday, the German soccer players will play against Austria in the Brentford Community Stadium for a place in the semi-finals. Thanks to a goal by Hoffenheim Bundesliga striker Nicole Billa, Germany’s 2021 and Austria’s “Female Soccer Player of the Year”, the Austria team defeated Norway 1-0 on Friday evening.
Voss-Tecklenburg announced an engaging display ahead of the meaningless final group game against Finland. “We will approach the game with a lot of joy and energy and then come back to Brentford to take the next step,” she said.
Against the Finns, who have already been eliminated, the DFB team will have to do without the defenders Felicitas Rauch and Lena Oberdorf, who have been suspended, as well as the injured Lina Magull and Sydney Lohmann. Goal scorer Lea Schüller (all FC Bayern) is still missing after her positive corona test.