The German soccer players around Svenja Huth (r.) couldn’t find a way past the Welsh defense.
Foto: imago/Beautiful Sports
It was probably the last business trip that Joti Chatzialexiou took with the German footballers. His job as sports director for national teams will soon be no longer applicable in the new organizational structure at the German Football Association (DFB) – and Nia Künzer will soon be responsible for women as sports director. After all, Chatzialexiou was happy “about the early St. Nicholas present that the Icelanders gave us,” as the 47-year-old said as an eyewitness to a disturbing performance by the DFB footballers in Wales (0-0).
Only thanks to Iceland’s 1-0 win in Denmark did the uninspired German performance on Tuesday evening have no consequences. It would have been a year full of irritation for international matches if the chance at the Olympic Games had been thrown away by an ensemble in Swansea that had celebrated in Rostock four days earlier. Horst Hrubesch then warned that the last step was always the hardest (“I know how these games go.”), but the interim coach may also have been irritated by the return to unimaginative World Cup times. There was no sign of the winning mentality of the last time against Denmark (3-0). This team poses puzzles in an endless loop.
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Nevertheless, the national coach stated: “We have achieved what we set out to do: we are still in business.” The dream of the Olympics lives on. The European Football Union Uefa is awarding the two free starting places for the first time through its new Nations League. The final round is scheduled for February 23rd to 28th, 2024, the semi-finals will be drawn on Monday, along with home advantage. Unlike the men, the women do not play a tournament on a neutral court.
“I would really like France, then we would have two opportunities to qualify,” said Hrubesch. If the French, who have already qualified as hosts, make it to the final, a win in the game for third place will ultimately be enough. The other possible opponents are world champions Spain and the Netherlands, who eliminated runner-up world champions England with a last-minute goal against Belgium (4-0). The 72-year-old Hrubesch admitted that his team was “not the favorite.”
“We allowed the game to be taken out of our hands, we were always too late and just trailed in the first half,” he criticized. “That wasn’t our claim, certainly not mine.” His players didn’t seem at all prepared for the resistance of the relegated team. Sparing top performers like Giulia Gwinn and Sydney Lohmann from FC Bayern was a mistake – just like the starting lineups of the team internally VfL Wolfsburg’s sports director Ralf Kellermann counted Jule Brand and the newcomer Elisa Senß from Bayer Leverkusen, who was overwhelmed this time. “It can’t be that we perform like that against Denmark and then play a game like that today,” said midfielder Sjoeke Nüsken from Chelsea FC.
Hrubesch continues through the New Year. “That’s the plan,” he revealed. He would also not be denied the dream of competing with Alexandra Popp and Co. at the Olympic Games (July 26 to August 11, 2024). Nevertheless, it is only professional for DFB managing director Andreas Rettig – certainly already in close consultation with Künzer – to discuss the question of a coaching successor in the background in order to be prepared for next summer at the latest. The first requirement should be experience in the women’s sector, so Stefan Kuntz or Miroslav Klose are not an issue.
According to reports, the group of candidates includes Bundesliga coaches Tommy Stroot (VfL Wolfsburg) and Stephan Lerch (TSG Hoffenheim) as well as Thomas Wörle (SSV Ulm Men), who formerly worked at FC Bayern. Likewise the experienced Colin Bell (South Korea), who is now employed at Eintracht Frankfurt, former U16 national coach Friederike Komp and even Jill Ellis, two-time world champion coach of the USA, who currently heads the technical study group of the world association Fifa. However, the 57-year-old does not speak German.
It is essential to look to the future now, because the next edition of the Nations League will start in spring 2024, through which qualification for the 2025 European Championship in Switzerland will also take place. Germany must at least finish first or second in the group in the A category in order to qualify directly. This time the DFB team had the easiest of the four top groups. Nevertheless, it took help from strong-character female kickers from Iceland to ensure that the premiere of the new competition did not end in embarrassment.
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