The German soccer players arrived in Australia for their World Cup adventure half an hour late. Early Thursday morning at 06:35 local time, the team landed at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith International Airport on Emirates flight EK 412 from Dubai.
After the approximately 24-hour journey, the players, coached by national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, still had to travel 90 kilometers by bus to the base camp in the small town of Wyong, north of the Olympic city of 2000.
At the Mercure Kooindah Waters Hotel, a small training session should be scheduled for noon. Voss-Tecklenburg: “Above all, we have to keep the players awake.” The jet lag should be overcome as quickly as possible.
There are still a week and a half left before the start of the World Cup: the first World Cup game against Morocco is not on the agenda in Melbourne until July 24 (10:30 a.m. CEST/ZDF). The other duels in the preliminary round will follow with Colombia on July 30 (11:30 a.m. CEST/ARD) in Sydney and South Korea in Brisbane on August 3 (12:00 p.m. CEST/ZDF).
There are 23 players in the squad, Janina Minge (SC Freiburg) traveled as a substitute candidate. Lena Oberdorf (thigh) and Marina Hegering (foot) started the journey in a bad way.