Giovanna Hoffmann pulls her strength out of the Bible at the European Championship 2025

Giovanna Hoffmann sometimes still has to be amazed at herself – even though she is a national player and striker at RB Leipzig. “In the beginning you are a dreamer,” says Hoffmann, 26, in a conversation in the German European Championship camp in Zurich. “At the time, I didn’t even know what it meant to come to the Bundesliga.”

She had no idea as a child that there were youth national teams and that you can play in the women’s Bundesliga. As a child, she had been on the fence to watch Werder Bremen during training. At that time she saw Diego and Miroslav Klose. Men’s professionals, idols of their youth. And that she started with football at TSV Imsum was actually a coincidence: she had an appointment with a friend from elementary school in the afternoon when his mother had said that he actually had training: “And then I just went with me when I was nine.”

Even then she had grabbed the ambition. She cried when she lost a game somewhere in the village near Bremerhaven. An example comes to mind: “I was in a football camp at the time, and there was a competition who could hold the ball up the longest. A boy won. That was the end of the world for me, although he was six years older.”

The striving to get better early is noticeable. The “North Sea newspaper” brought a story about her as a 14-year-old, who protected in the youth department at SV Werder. During this time, she drove from Bremerhaven to Bremen three to four times a week for training. When there are games at the weekend, she slept with a friend. The path was actually designed when the first big setback passed.

Hoffmann remembers exactly: “At 15, 16, everything went well for me. I had already played games in the 2nd Bundesliga for Werder, the Bundesliga promotion was certain when I broke the ankle in the last week of the season. My world stood my head and I didn’t know where there was ahead and in the back.” In her last U17 season, shortly before the transition to the first team. She did not live on the Werder boarding school, but in another house: “I was the only girl-and the only one under the age of 18.”

The first long break made her thoughtful – and she said to herself that she would stop at the next serious injury. At this point she later came to SC Freiburg in her time when a cruciate ligament tore.

“I didn’t know if I should continue playing. I prayed and opened the Bible: I got a clear removal that I should continue. Otherwise I would not be here today.” The Bible also accompanies them in Switzerland, because: “For me, to be a believer means to believe what is in the Bible. I made the decision that this should be part of my life. That this is my life.”

So she owes her belief to her belief that she is a hopeful on the ninth European title in women’s football for Germany. She talks quite freely about this, because after the quarter-final thriller against France (6: 5 in penalty shootout), a photo was taken that left hardly any scope for interpretations. The number 18 knelt and prayed while the teammates celebrated in the background. “It was a very personal moment for me,” she says. “If you get such a great gift, namely to be able to play with such a positive outcome in such a game: I got on my knees with gratitude.”

She does not give the impression that she was at work with a missionary zeal. But without this stop, that can be heard, she would not have suppressed Lea Schüller. The rather renowned goal scorer from FC Bayern, who met both against Poland (2-0) and Denmark (2: 1), but ultimately never really worked. Hoffmann’s body language is different-and stands for everything that distinguishes the German footballers based on the 10.7 million TV viewers watched last Saturday evening. Don’t give up, knock everything out.

She couldn’t sleep all night afterwards. Hoffmann: “At some point the sun opened and I still had no eye. I had so much adrenaline in my body. It was the case with many of us. It was the most exhausting game of my career.”

Can such a effort against the world champions that are spraying in front of a playful mood? Why not? “In the last game you saw that resistance does not throw back, but rather make us even stronger. That we have an incredibly high resilience in our team and that everyone is able to take responsibility.”

Which of course was not so easy after the red card against Kathrin Hendrich after less than a quarter of an hour. “There have been moments when I took through and thought: that can’t be true. It is still a long time to play,” says Hoffmann. After that, you came together in a circle and discussed how things go tactically: “Then we looked into our eyes and said: No matter what happens today: We can do it. And we often said that in the game.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel said this sentence in the refugee crisis – he is still punching her ears. Hoffmann only meant the German virtues, but now Merkel critic Friedrich Merz even wants to come to the final in Basel next Sunday. But world champion Spain would have to be beaten. Hoffmann, who scored three goals in eleven international matches, is convinced that it can work with the coup. “In a semi -finals we all have to grow beyond ourselves.”

Christian Wück keeps big pieces on Hoffmann. The national coach, who stormed in the Bundesliga himself, sees her the ideal attacker who can capture balls, employ opponents, tear gaps. She does not deny the thesis that it would have been nothing more without a Wück with the DFB debut: “This is also part of the fact that you are in the right place at the right time; that you have people who trust you. I also do not know whether it would have happened to me without the personnel upheaval.”

After the European Championship, Hoffmann has to consider where their path leads in club football. A club like Leipzig, who wants to progress with slow steps in women’s football, is actually too small. The striker told her consultant that she just wanted to hear congratulations. No inquiries from other clubs. But can still come. England in particular would be interesting for their style of play.

What happens after the career, she has more specific ideas. Hoffmann studied law from 2016 until the first state examination in 2021. Only the legal clerkship is missing for the second state examination. “But football is currently not possible. That’s why I put it a bit on a break.” In her time in Freiburg, she worked at the University of Criminal Law. “Hopefully at some point I’ll make my legal clerkship.”

Her wish: judge or prosecutor, “but let’s see what is still happening in the legal world”. Then she gets up and goes to lie down again. Sufficient sleep, she wants to say that, is the most important thing before the semi -finals against Spain.