Fran Kirby (center) scored England’s third goal against the DFB team led by Sara Däbritz (right) and Sophia Kleinherne.
Foto: imago images/Anna Gowthorpe
Dressing up has never helped in competitive sports. So the first German soccer players put their finger in the open wound on the sidelines in the Wolverhampton Wanderers stadium. ‘England threw things at us without mercy,’ Giulia Gwinn said with disarming honesty. Sara Däbritz missed “rip-off and cleverness” on the German side, which is why the captain classified the 1:3 defeat in the last and most important endurance test of the top-class four-nation tournament as an “educational game”. Defender Sophia Kleinherne understood the late blows in the neck, which gave the hosts England the overall victory in the Arnold Clark Cup, which was being held for the first time, as an invitation for the German team to “show a completely different face until the European Championships”. Otherwise, the dreams of the title at the finals in July on the island will already be shattered in the group phase when runners-up Denmark and secret favorite Spain face early stumbling blocks.
National coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg apparently had a different view of the happy 13,436 spectators on Wednesday evening: “The defeat is very annoying because it is unnecessary. I don’t think we were the worse team. We sold ourselves a bit short.” At least the 54-year-old didn’t shirk the realization that the 1-1 draw against Spain had technical advantages, the 0-1 draw against Canada mental advantages and now against England physical advantages for the opponents had appeared. Looking ahead to the European Championships in four and a half months, the fact that Germany took last place in the final count did not worry them at all. “We know why we didn’t win the games. I would have been a lot more shocked if we were miles away from the other teams in overall performance.” Talent development would take years, and there would be plenty of missing players coming back who are more physically robust. “There are a variety of topics,” said the national coach and almost defiantly stated before the trip home: “This table doesn’t worry me.”
After all, it was just a test run for the European Championships in England. And yet the results should serve as a small wake-up call. Because the weakened defensive wobbled under pressure. She was a powerful help in goals conceded by Ellen White after 15 minutes, Millie Bright in the 84th minute and Fran Kirby in stoppage time. On the other hand, the appearance of the »Three Lionesses« looked almost ready for the title in some phases. Their Dutch head coach Sarina Wiegman rightly praised the enormous power and the great will: »We wanted to win. That was good to see.”
The German team lacked structure, calmness and precision for the top level – and personnel – in all games. After more than a dozen injury or corona-related cancellations, the DFB women were only able to keep up in parts. On the one hand, it is true that pillars like Lena Oberdorf, Dzsenifer Marozsan, Svenja Huth and Alexandra Popp are indispensable in such games, but with Merle Frohms, Lina Magull, Sara Däbritz, Lea Schüller and Klara Bühl there were still enough pillars on the pitch. “The tournament just shows us once again what we need to work on, that we still have a lot of potential,” said Magull, who, in the 40th minute, provided the highlight from a German perspective with a free kick under the bar.
It will be exciting to see which “learnings with the team”, which Voss-Tecklenburg talked about, will soon be initiated – and which deficits are more of a fundamental nature, which the sporting director of national teams Joti Chatzialexiou relentlessly in his first on-site analysis had addressed. Competitors like Spain or England seem to be further in terms of ball acceptance, passing and speed of action at high intensity. But what can be encouraging after the instructive trip: The national coach Sarina Wiegman, hired by England’s association, who orchestrated the sensational European Championship coup of the Dutch national team in 2017, explicitly pointed out the German failures – and of course counted the eight-time European champion among the five or six Teams that would be eligible for the title next summer.
