Olympic qualification for the DFB women: “Just went well again”

With a deserved 2-0 win against the Netherlands, the German women’s national team qualified for the Olympics in Paris. An urgently needed success for the players, the association and German women’s football as a whole, says NDR reporter Kristoffer Klein in his commentary.

That just went well. For the players, because it gives them self-confidence after the past, difficult months when they had to deal with the embarrassing World Cup preliminary round exit and some of their club performance fell as a result.

Künzer’s goal: win the title again

For the association, because after the sporting disaster in Australia and the inglorious end of the era of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, positive headlines are once again being written. This allows the new sports director Nia Künzer a somewhat gentler introduction to a complex task. She wants to further develop the women’s national team athletically and structurally – with the aim of winning titles again. The last one was at the Olympic Games in Rio 2016.

This success is so important for German women’s football as a whole because the increased attention and enthusiasm for the national team, the players and also for the women’s Bundesliga is still a pretty tender plant – grown especially through reaching the final at the European Championships in 2022. Once again Disappointment might have had a negative impact on viewership, ratings and sponsor interest.

Consistently good performance is necessary

So it just went well. And that despite the fact that convincing performances have so far been the exception under interim national coach Horst Hrubesch. Often there was a lack of courage and ideas and the team appeared unsettled and inhibited.

The European Championship qualification begins at the beginning of April with a new, more sportingly demanding mode. Then – as of course in the summer in Paris – consistently good performances are necessary. Performances like the deserved 2-0 win in the Netherlands.