Because of a migraine, national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg missed the training of the German soccer players on Thursday at the European Championships in England. The 54-year-old was missing from Grasshoppers Rugby Football Club grounds. The ailing Sydney Lohmann only trained individually because of a knee irritation. Her midfield colleague from FC Bayern, Lina Magull (thigh problems), worked in the weight room. The DFB women will meet Finland at the European Championships in England on Saturday (9 p.m.) in Milton Keynes, but are already top of the group after beating Denmark and Spain qualified for the quarterfinals. Voss-Tecklenburg briefly had physical problems after beating Spain 2-0, as she said afterwards. “In fact, I was a bit down after the game, so my circulation had to get up again.” The practice session on Thursday was led by their assistants Patrik Grolimund, Thomas Nörenberg, Britta Carlson and goalkeeping coach Michael Fuchs. (dpa)
After their first victories, defending champions Netherlands and Sweden have a good chance of reaching the quarter-finals of the European Women’s Football Championship in England. The Dutch won Group C 3-2 (2-1) against Portugal on Wednesday, before Sweden won 2-1 (0-0) against Switzerland. This means that the two teams rated as strongest in this preliminary round group each have four points after the second game. At the start both had separated 1:1 from each other. Switzerland and Portugal, on the other hand, are threatened with elimination with just one point each. Damaris Egurrola (7th minute) and Stefanie van der Gragt (16th) ensured the weak Dutch team quickly took a 2-0 lead. However, Carole Costa (38′) with a penalty kick after video evidence and Diana Silva (47′) equalized for Portugal. Daniëlle van de Donk (62nd) redeemed the favorites with her goal. The Swiss defended themselves surprisingly well against Sweden after a wave of gastrointestinal flu that affected nine players. Substitute Hanna Bennison scored the winning goal with a tight shot from distance in the 79th minute. Before that, Ramona Bachmann (55th) equalized the Swedish lead by Fridolina Rolfö (53rd) almost immediately. (dpa=
It’s just a great feeling and I’m super proud of the team. What we showed here today is just amazing.
I just speculated that the goalkeeper would make an individual mistake and that’s what happened. I’m happy that I was able to use that and create a basis for the team so early on.
We were already prepared that we wouldn’t have the ball that much, but that we wanted to be extremely compact and aggressive in tackles. Then being so efficient up front was the perfect start for us. So we could concentrate fully on the defensive.
