The German soccer women now want more at the European Championship.
(Photo: dpa)
Utrecht “We have seen an increase again. The knot is bursting, the machine is now rolling,” said Steffi Jones satisfied after the solid EM preliminary round in the 2-0 (1-0) against Russia in Utecht. With a view to the quarter-finals against Denmark on Saturday (8.45 p.m.) in Rotterdam, the national coach added: “I am firmly convinced that we will continue to score goals.”
Lena Goeßling, who celebrated an almost brilliant comeback on Tuesday after an injury break of more than eight months due to bone edema, believes so too: “Now it really depends. In any case, we haven’t shot the powder yet,” promised the 31-year-old from champions VfL Wolfsburg.
The midfielder, who usually plays on the “six” at the club, was surprisingly deployed in central defense alongside her VfL colleague Babett Peter and solved the task with all her routine. Jones rightly praised: “She did really well!”
Captain Dzsenifer Marozsan, who struggled with her pass rate against the defensively tough Russia, believes her side can still improve significantly in terms of play and chance conversion. “But I’m glad that we finished first in our group. That was our goal,” said the 25-year-old from the Champions League winner Olympique Lyon.
Tagus Top-Jobs
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Marozsan thinks the defending champions will find it easier to face more attacking opponents. And there is no more tactics from now on, because each team now has to score goals themselves in order to progress. “Then there’s more space,” said the director, who only blossomed against Russia after scoring her first goal of the tournament in the 56th minute and had more good moves. European Championship debutant Sara Doursoon agreed: “Now it’s all about progressing. No team will stand behind that.”
Kristin Demann didn’t care that Peter’s lead (10′) and Marozsan’s 2-0 lead came from penalties. “We forced the penalties. We saved the goals from the game for the knockout games,” assured the midfielder. She is “not worried at all because we have created many chances again”.
After the 0-0 draw against Sweden, the DFB women scored three of the four goals against Italy (2-1) and Russia (2-0) from penalties. Josephine Henning also scored the lead against the Italians, who surprisingly defeated Sweden 3-2, after a set piece (Marozsan corner). “In any case, we’re prepared for penalties,” commented Marozsan with a grin.
She herself wasn’t keen on taking the second penalty against Russia. “It’s not important to me to shoot the penalty. I took the ball because it’s difficult to take two penalties in one game,” emphasized the ball virtuoso. Her shot, curled exactly off the post, showed how well she can do it, with which she didn’t give goalkeeper Tatjana Shcherbak a chance.
Peter, who had already sunk her second European Championship penalty at the time, also warned with a view to the next task: “It’s not the rule that we get one or two penalties per game.” After three preliminary round games, the DFB-Elf is still waiting for a striker’s first goal. The five nominal attackers Svenja Huth, Mandy Islacker, Hasret Kayikci, Anja Mittag and Lena Petermann have so far gone empty handed.
It is also unusual that rotation friend Jones has already used all 20 field players in order to be “variable and difficult to calculate”. However, the 44-year-old indicated that she will not make as many changes in personnel in the future: “It will now look different in the direction of knockout games.”
Reactions to the game on dfb.de
EM-Kader DFB-Team
Match report on dfb.de
Results and Table Group B
EM schedule from quarterfinals
