VA lot of what they had planned with great attention to detail has turned out as hoped. The German Football Association (DFB) team convincingly mastered the initial tasks at the European Championship. However, the tour group was surprised by the weather. England has presented itself as a place in the blazing sun for days.
The temperatures have turned some meadows in the west London park, where the DFB base camp is located, into arid steppe landscape. And it’s getting even hotter. For the first time this Tuesday, the Health Security Agency issued a warning of “unhealthy heat” for the United Kingdom. The temperature record on the island is 38.7 degrees Celsius – it should fall.
“She’s really good for the team”
Michael Fuchs, who is primarily a goalkeeper coach on the staff of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, announced that the supervisory staff in preparation for the quarter-finals against Austria on Thursday (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship) will focus on the react to the warmth that takes getting used to and adapt the exercise units. It’s more important than ever to “regenerate well,” said the 52-year-old, who himself was an amateur goalkeeper at 1. FC Nürnberg before moving to the association in 2007. Fuchs isn’t worried about the fitness of the group, even under the sweaty circumstances. “No matter who you look at,” he said, “everyone’s in a good mood.”
Fuchs is not surprised that Merle Frohms, who surprisingly won the internal competition for the post between the posts against Almuth Schult before the tournament, left such a calm and reliable impression on her debut on the big stage: “Because she has in Frankfurt worked very well.” Technically and tactically, she has scaled new heights. The 27-year-old, who grew up in Celle, was one of the pillars of the Eintracht ensemble that secured qualification for the Champions League in May. After the Euros, she will also replace Schult at VfL Wolfsburg, who is moving to Angel FC in Los Angeles at the end of her career.
Alexandra Popp, the captain of the DFB-Elf, has known Frohms since she was a teenager and speaks with great appreciation about the career of her upcoming club colleague: “Merle has developed brutally over the past ten years,” said Popp, “she has also seen us before saved his butt to stay in the game. It is really good for the team.”
For Niko Arnautis, their previous coach in Frankfurt, the worth seeing appearances at the European Championship match the experiences he gained with Frohms in Frankfurt. She has gained stature all around and has “matured as a personality,” said the 42-year-old of the FAZ. “We had many positive conversations with each other and were able to help Merle learn that it is worth fighting resistance on the and she can trust herself.”
Frohms himself is one of the quieter contemporaries in the dressing room. After the victories over Denmark (4:0), Spain (2:0) and Finland (3:0), she didn’t go directly in front of the cameras, but she would have marched directly to the waiting bus if her from DFB- Page had not been signaled subtly that the (international) media demand for her person is great.
The fact that she hasn’t conceded a goal so far and has made spectacular saves several times, for example against the Spaniard Mariona Caldentey, she classified without any tendency to be cocky, because after all she had to “be there” when her support was needed. The “environment” in Frankfurt was recently “decisive” that her career picked up speed, as she “improved athletically”.
Frohms is 1.75 meters tall and, with her slender physique, looks downright filigree compared to some of her more robust competitors. Bounce, position management with long balls or the courage to throw yourself from the line into the fray in the penalty area with high crosses characterize their class. Frohms, said Arnautis, wanted to “win everything and always”. Despite her gentle nature, she is a leader today, “because she constantly wants to get better and leads the team with her performance”. At the European Championship, this opens up title chances for the Germans for the first time since 2013.
