The draw gave the German soccer players the supposedly lightest group at the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. But already from the possible round of 16 it goes around. The DFB women still talk boldly about the World Cup title.
The final preparation for the first World Cup game started for the German team in Wyong on Tuesday (July 18th, 2023) at the latest: Next Monday (July 24th, 2023) the game will be in Melbourne against Morocco. After days of acclimatization and being idle on Monday, national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg picked up the pace in the base camp.
Klara Bühl reported “a lot of fun”, but also a “high intensity in training” and added: “It also gets down to business. We have to challenge and encourage ourselves.”
Her teammate Chantal Hagel explained: “We want to be at 100 percent in the first game. In the last two games before the World Cup we saw what we still have to work on. We’re doing that now – training after training, day after day. We have to Pay attention to each other on the pitch and get into the processes. Then we’ll be where we want to be.”
Hendrich: “Zambia was a warning”
Your own claim is first place in Group H, in which, in addition to Morocco, Colombia (07/30/2023) and South Korea (08/03/2023) are waiting for the DFB women as preliminary round opponents. On paper, it is probably the simplest group.
“Of course, it could have been much more difficult for us,” said Lena Oberdorf, not beating around the bush for long, although she said that one could not speak of an “easy group”. In any case, officials and players have been aiming for the third World Cup title after 2003 and 2007 some time ago.
While two top nations are usually represented in the other seven groups, the South Koreans in Group H, with 17th place in the world rankings on paper, are the second strongest team in the preliminary round. Germany is currently second behind the USA, Colombia is 25th and Morocco follows in 72nd place.
After the defeat against Zambia (2:3), which is “officially” the weakest team in the tournament with rank 77, the Germans would do well not to underestimate any team. “Zambia was definitely a warning,” said veteran defender Kathi Hendrich. “You saw what was in store for us.”
In the round of 16 against Brazil or France
Captain Alexandra Popp underscored: “All the nations taking part in this World Cup are rightly there and therefore not easy to play with.” From their point of view, at least one more well-known opponent in the preliminary round would probably have done the team good. “With a real chunk in the group stage, you know that you have to start the tournament with 100 percent straight away.”
That’s how it was at last year’s European Championship, when Germany met the highly rated teams from Denmark and Spain in the first two games and scored two victories. Now midfielder Sara Däbritz’s attack has to do the trick: “We want to play our group stage in such a way that we perform well and find our way into the tournament.”
You have to win against everyone anyway to become world champion in the end.
The German team must be in top form by the round of 16 at the latest. As the group constellation wants, France or Brazil would then most likely be waiting as opponents. In the quarter-finals, there could already be a repeat of the EM final in 2022 against England.
Germany: Again through team spirit to success?
No matter how far Germany goes – all games will take place in Australia. Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and possibly Adelaide are the venues.
Whether Spain, Japan, Norway, Canada or the USA – all these countries can only stand in the way of the team of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg in the final.
“If we act together as a team, it’s difficult for any team to beat us,” Jule Brand is convinced. The Wolfsburg native, who last year received the “Gold Girl Award” as the best U21 player in Europe, won the DFB Cup in her first year at VfL, but as before at the European Championships, both in the Bundesliga and in the Bundesliga narrowly missed the great success in the Champions League.
The 20-year-old takes an offensive approach to the Australian adventure: “We want the title.” And striker Lea Schüller also sees the game plan pragmatically: “You have to win against everyone anyway to become world champion in the end.”