Lost the European Cup, but still achieved a lot: Alexandra Popp
Foto: Imago/Beautiful Sports
Alexandra Popp is many things: 31 years young, from Witten in Westphalia, trained animal keeper, flexible as a soccer player (attack, midfield, defence) and successful. She has won the German championship title, the cup, the Champions League several times and is an Olympic champion. She has been Vice European Champion since Sunday evening and was the European Championship’s top scorer with six goals.
What Alexandra Popp is not? A women soccer player. That’s not a common gender monster, although the “Taz” actually made the headline with it. It’s just wrong. This has been explained several times in this newspaper. But gladly again – as long as Popp and all her football-playing colleagues get the otherwise missing attention in the course of the EM. Women’s football is derived from women’s football – a sport that does not exist.
“This is an important step in recognizing the strong performance of all female soccer players,” said Popp before the European Championship, speaking of the #NoWomen’s Soccer campaign. VW started this as a reliable sponsor of women’s football. With a convincing argument for more equality: »Men play football. And women play women’s soccer. Enough of that!” Because: “Women don’t play women’s passes and don’t score women’s goals either. Women play soccer!«
Alexandra Popp was inconsolable on Sunday because she was injured in the final. Next to her, in the back row, was goalkeeper Almuth Schult. First and foremost, both went together for years in the national team and at VfL Wolfsburg – with performance and opinion. Schult sees the end of the devaluation through the enthusiastic EM in England: “We are finally seen as football and not as ‘just’ women’s football.” Popp is similarly optimistic: “The discussion about equal rights for women and men in professional sport is gaining ground worldwide on the move.«
