The German women’s soccer team caused a sensation with second place at the European Championships, and now the U20 national team wants to do better at the World Cup in Costa Rica.
“Everyone is really excited about the tournament. They are happy that it’s finally starting soon. It’s an honor for everyone to be able to take part and you can feel the team spirit, the will to achieve something together.”said DFB coach Kathrin Peter in an interview with dfb.de: “Of course, our senior national team and their performance at the women’s European Championship is a role model. We followed the games enthusiastically and shared our excitement. That also arouses enormous anticipation for our tournament.”
Against Colombia, New Zealand and Mexico
At the World Cup in the Central American country, the team in Group B will meet Colombia at the start on Wednesday (08/10/2022). Other opponents are New Zealand (13 August) and Mexico (16 August). The team will play all preliminary round matches at the Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto in Alajuela. There are 16 teams divided into four groups. The top two in each group advance to the quarter-finals. Japan is the defending champion.
21 players there
Peter has nominated 21 women for the tournament – 18 field players and three goalkeepers. The team is led by U20 captain Madeleine Steck from Eintracht Frankfurt.
The tournament was actually supposed to kick off in August 2020, but was postponed twice due to the corona pandemic. Also the qualification failed. The four European starting places for the U-20 World Cup are actually played out a year earlier at the U-19 European Championship. However, since that did not take place either, the UEFA Executive Committee selected the participants based on the coefficient rankings of the qualifying round. Germany has won the U20 World Cup three times – in 2004, 2010 and 2014.