Even a year after its official opening, the Linz Arena continues to be a meeting place for football teams and their supporters, where workers continue to work diligently to prepare everything so that it meets the planners’ wishes. There could hardly have been a more suitable setting these days for the women’s selection of the German Football Association (DFB), which, after passing the aptitude test for the Olympic Games, will be busy in the coming weeks earning permission to compete in the next major event: In the away game in Austria, Horst Hrubesch’s team took the hoped-for first step towards qualifying for the European Championships in June 2025 in Switzerland with a hard-fought 3-2 win.
The national coach was more in demand than ever as an innovator when putting together the squad, as the resignation of Svenja Huth and injuries to established players such as Alexandra Popp, Marina Hegering and Sara Däbritz made a number of changes necessary, both offensively and defensively. The creativity with which Hrubesch designed the formation’s direction led to success in front of 7,500 spectators – and at the same time provided an indication that the personnel change that the looming resignation of previous leaders would soon make necessary also for Hrubesch’s designated successor could cause a lot of headaches.
Hrubesch: “Know that we can do better”
Christian Wück, as Hrubesch said with a mischievous grin before setting off on a warm spring night to the hotel in the Upper Austrian province, where he will spend the weekend getting the squad in the mood for the home game this Tuesday in Aachen against Iceland (6.10 p.m., ZDF), will in any case ” “have fun” in guiding the players to greater stability in their performances. “We are not a team that is completely coordinated,” said Hrubesch, “and we know that we can do better. We have to accelerate more.”
He was “delighted” about the outcome, which brought three points, “that’s important.” The Hamburger announced that he would “clearly address” internally that it is not compatible with the big goals that they all have to allow themselves to be taken by surprise again and again by opponents, as was the case in the first 30 minutes of the prestigious neighborhood duel in Linz, which was like a lesson. “We knew that we couldn’t allow ourselves to be boiled down,” said Hrubesch, referring to the preparation, in which a lot revolved around the physical robustness of the Austrians. “But then we weren’t present,” complained the national coach about his team’s phlegmatic start, which resulted in two goals from Eileen Campbell (9th minute and 16th). “That wasn’t what we wanted. “It’s only possible if we always play at 100 percent,” he added. “We have to play faster and more calmly,” was his announcement, which he recently used in a similar choice of words after the 1-2 draw in France and the 0-0 draw in Wales – without any lasting consequences.
“The trees here don’t grow into the sky,” said Hrubesch. Winning a ticket to the Olympic Games is an achievement that needs to be confirmed. In the remaining 16 weeks until the start of the tournament, which initially includes preliminary round appearances for the Germans in Marseille and St. Etienne, it must be possible to coordinate more reliably. Scenes that initially existed in abundance, in which the DFB team, under pressure, failed to cross the first pressing line in a well-thought-out manner and instead repeatedly found themselves caught up in duels in which they looked bad due to their lack of speed of action , do not correspond to his idea of a straightforward structure in his own half.
