DFB women just before target

German football players can get their tickets for the 2023 World Cup in Serbia on Tuesday. But the focus is on the upcoming European Championships.

Pit Stop in Belgrade: Although German football players are going fast to the World Cup and can buy their tickets to the 2023 final on Tuesday, the real target is the Euros. After all, the qualifying game (4 p.m. / ZDF) in Serbia is the last mandatory game before a continental title fight in the summer.

National coach Martina Vos-Tecklenburg said on Monday, “We now want to step up and approach EM with this awareness: “That would be a good statement towards EM.” Indeed, in the final round (July 6 to 31). The record European champions are focused entirely on the tournament in England, three months before July.

This is mainly due to a comfortable starting position in the World Cup qualifiers as a result of their 3-0 (1-0) win against Portugal on Saturday. After seven wins in seven matches, a draw is enough for the German Football Association (DFB) in Serbia to travel to Australia and New Zealand next year.

However, on Tuesday, players will also have to do their own EM advertisements. Vos-Tecklenburg said, “We want to keep our clean slate. The game against Portugal was really good. We want to confirm that. We want to go through the game with that desire.”

A 5-1 win over Serbia in the first leg may have been a win, but the German side were down 1-0 at half-time in November. Then Lee Schouler scored four times. “Serbia comes through with materiality. We are ready for that,” “MVT” said: “They want to score and place second.”

Schultz’s return had to be postponed

Support should really give Almuth Schult. However, shoulder problems meant the goalkeeper would not be able to make his first international match in almost three years. “It was very emotional,” said Vos-Tecklenburg, who instead relies on his first-choice goalkeeper Merle Froome: “It was difficult for everyone involved because we wanted Almuth to be on the pitch after so long “

The national coach is not predicting that Schultz will take a long break – although the woman at Wolfsburg is “pre-loaded” with shoulder operations. On Monday afternoon, the VfL announced that Schultz had suffered only one strain. “If it were a final, she would be in the goal,” Voss-Tecklenburg said: “We need Almuth as a person and as a man – on and off the pitch.”

Like Schultz, Felicitas Rauch and Clara Buhl did not fly to Belgrade according to internal agreements. Voss-Tecklenburg, on the other hand, wants to have all the players on board when preparations for the European Championship begin.

In early June, the women will be the first team to inaugurate the new DFB complex, which will cost 150 million euros. The two-time world champion is looking to play a friendly before the start of the European Championships against Denmark (July 8).

Expected German team line-up:

Fromes – Dorsaun, Hendrik, Feldkamp, ​​Gwyn – Magal, Maroszen, Obersdorf – Huth, Pope, Brand. – Trainer: Voss-Tecklenburg