Friendly win against France: Celebrated DFB women: “What we always dreamed of”

Celebrated double goalscorer and captain Alexandra Popp found the atmosphere “simply amazing”. Lena Oberdorf couldn’t get the grin off her face when the national anthem was played.

“It was pure goosebumps. As a child, you dream of exactly this backdrop when you think about an international match. That’s what we’ve always dreamed of,” said the 20-year-old after the 2-1 (1-0) win for the Germans Soccer players in the test match against France on Friday evening in Dresden. 26,825 fans in the almost sold-out Rudolf Harbig Stadium cheered the vice European champions practically every time they won the ball and long after the final whistle.

DFB President enthusiastic

DFB President Bernd Neuendorf, who honored the national team before kick-off for the famous European Championships in England in July, was more than impressed by the mood and behavior of the national players: “It’s just great to watch here.”

More than two months after losing the final against England in Wembley, the team of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg also thoroughly enjoyed the lap of honour. La ola swept through the arena. “That’s how playing football is fun and winning is fun,” said Popp, who gave herself and the audience something of a déjà vu experience: The 31-year-old scored like the 2-1 in the European Championship semifinals against the French Wolfsburg both goals (44th and 48th minute).

“It’s just amazing”

“It’s just amazing how the people got along here. We just delivered here, we gave 100 percent like we did at the European Championship,” said goalkeeper Merle Frohms. Your team and those responsible for the DFB are now hoping that the euphoria can continue into the Bundesliga and the Champions League games of VfL Wolfsburg and FC Bayern Munich.

“Of course you can see that it’s booming. That’s exactly where we have to keep at it, that it wasn’t a one-time thing with the 26,000,” warned midfield clearer Oberdorf from VfL Wolfsburg. Maybe 30,000 in a larger stadium would be an option, but you can’t go from zero to one hundred. An average of 3.227 million viewers watched the ARD primetime broadcast, which, according to AGF Videoforschung, corresponds to a market share of 12.6 percent.

“I hope that the upcoming home games will be accepted in the same way. We want to keep it that way,” said Voss-Tecklenburg. “It’s up to us, it’s also up to attractive games in the Champions League. I can only ask everyone there too: Watch the games!” For her and her team, it’s off to the USA in November for two matches against the reigning world champions.

The national coach not only wants to keep the audience happy, but also her currently most conspicuous player: Popp, who scored six times at the European Championships, maintains that she is not planning to take part in the World Cup from July 20 to August 20, 2023 in Australia and New Zealand want to set. She had said this several times before. She wants to listen to her gut feeling, even if she’s having a lot of fun with football at the moment. “As of now, I clearly have the World Championships on my list. I’m still leaving everything open to me,” said the 2016 Olympic champion again on Friday evening.

Voss-Tecklenburg does not want to “interpret so much” into these statements and sees it “quite relaxed”. She could imagine that Popp’s concerns had something to do with the fact that she always had to fight back after injuries. This was also the case ahead of the Euro after the striker suffered a serious knee injury last year. Voss-Tecklenburg, she said, also said to her captain in view of the European Championship final defeat: “We both lost a final. I don’t think you can stop like that.”