Before the final of the U17 World Cup
The German U17 footballers want to follow the European Championship title in the summer with a really big coup at the World Cup. “At the time at the European Championships, we thought that we had achieved our goal with the final against France, but now we realize that the European Championship title was only an interim goal on the way to the World Cup,” said coach Christian Wück on the “Youtube” account of the German Football Association before the final on Saturday (1 p.m.) in Surakarta against France.
“Of course we want to compete against France just like we did at the European Championships,” Wück continued. At the beginning of June, the German team won the European Championship trophy with a victory on penalties against the French youth team.
Brunner, Darvich & Co.: The German U17 squad for the World Cup in Indonesia
Wück describes the tournament so far with victories against Spain and Argentina, among others, as a special journey. “If you think about how it started with the racist comments, which we quickly brushed off, only positive things have come since then. More and more every day. We notice that we are becoming more and more in focus, that we are getting more and more attention,” said Wück, who was pleased that the players “are making optimal use of the World Cup platform and are developing very well as a result.”
Da Silva Moreira confident: “We came to Indonesia to win titles”
Wück’s protégé Eric da Silva Moreira goes into the World Cup final full of self-confidence. If the DFB team triumphs, they would be the first team to win the U17 European Championship and the U17 World Cup in the same year. “Some people may have thought: ‘You have already won a major title and are happy with it,’” said the 17-year-old native of Hamburg in an interview with the world association FIFA: “But we don’t think like that. We came here to Indonesia to win the title.”
Da Silva Moreira, right-back from second division club FC St. Pauli, is one of the top performers and scored two goals during the tournament. Coach Wück in particular is the great motivator for the young players. “He always tells us how proud we have to be to play for Germany,” emphasized da Silva Moreira. “I think we have certain similarities with the big German teams around 30 years ago in terms of our fighting spirit and our style of play. It’s in the German mentality to be a real team and that’s exactly what we have in this group. I think that’s why we always win!”
Winner of the Golden Boot at U17 World Championships since 2000
To date, a DFB team has only appeared in a World Cup final in 1985 – at that time U16 teams still competed against each other – and were defeated by Nigeria 2-0. A German team led by Rani Khedira and Mitchell Weiser reached a semi-final in Mexico in 2011. At that time the team came third.
Da Silva Moreira on the repeat of the summer final against the French: “The final back then was the biggest game of our career. Now we have our biggest game ahead of us again. We know how we can win against them and what we have to do to achieve it.”
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