Women’s football: DFB team with problems at the Arnold Clark Cup

• Draw against Spain, defeat against Canada: A weakened DFB selection has difficulties in the Arnold Clark Cup.
• Nevertheless, there is reason for hope for Germany at the upcoming European Championship.
• The coverage of the Arnold Clark Cup is further proof that women’s football is not taken seriously enough.

1:1 and 0:1 – the German women’s national team did not start well in the Arnold Clark Cup. Against Spain and England, the team of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg did not get on track.

The new four-nation tournament is viewed by female players as a great opportunity to measure themselves against the best in the world. Most of the time, the top players are under-challenged rather than properly challenged during the international breaks.

That certainly cannot be said about the Arnold Clark Cup. So far, Germany has had major problems successfully completing this test. The results so far at a glance:

• Germany 1-1 Spain
• England 1: 1 Canada
• England 0: 0 Spain
• Canada 1-0 Germany

This puts Canada (4 points) ahead of England, Spain (2 points each) and Germany (1 point). The reasons for the moderate performance of the DFB-Elf, a hopeful look into the future and the half-hearted reporting are our topics of the week.

1. Germany is struggling at the EM dress rehearsal

Captain Alexandra Popp, Almuth Schult, Svenja Huth, Lena Lattwein (all VfL Wolfsburg), Marina Hegering (FC Bayern Munich), Dzsenifer Marozsan (Olympique Lyon) and Melanie Leupolz (FC Chelsea) – that’s just a small selection of players which the national coach at the Arnold Clark Cup cannot fall back on. There are at least 14 failures in total – mostly due to corona.

That alone makes it difficult to evaluate the performances shown so far. The desired position determination is now more of a test for the extended squad in the fight for the coveted last places at the European Championships in summer. Against Spain, however, the game seemed like a class difference for a long time.

In the first half, the German team was literally presented by the Spaniards around world footballer Alexia Putellas. Germany defended deep, but rarely made dangerous forward moves in the few phases of possession. The Spanish pressing was too overwhelming, and their own solutions were too unimaginative.

The DFB selection did not remain without its own opportunities, even had one or the other good counterattack, which was not played well. Spain remained the better team. At the beginning of the second half, Lena Oberdorf unluckily clarified and Putellas didn’t let the chance be taken away from close range.

Only towards the end did the Voss-Tecklenburg team seem to realize that they needed at least one goal. A courageous final phase was rewarded with Lea Schüller equalizing in the 88th minute. It wasn’t nice what Germany showed, but “the mentality was important,” said the national coach.

Canada’s defense too strong – Germany’s offensive too weak

Against Canada, the Germans were more challenged to own the ball – and that revealed the problems even more clearly. Voss-Tecklenburg previously rotated to seven positions – only Feldkamp, ​​Bühl, Brand and Magull were in the starting XI again. The game started accordingly restlessly.

Less than eight minutes had passed before Canada took advantage of the lack of coordination with the DFB team for the first time. After a corner, Vanessa Gilles headed in to make it 1-0. From then on, the maple leaves did what they had done so well when they won the Olympics: stand low, defend and wait for offensive changeover situations.

Germany struggled with having to play the game. As against Spain, they failed to bring momentum to their build-up. Individual players held the ball too long, open spaces were seen and played on too late, but their own passing game was also too unclean overall.

Even the repeated pressure phase in the final minutes lacked structure. Germany tried the crowbar, but that was not enough. So if you want to see the Arnold Clark Cup as a way of determining where the battered national team is, then before the last game against England the conclusion is that they still have a lot of work to do.

player of the week

Alexia Putellas has so far underscored her status as a world footballer. Her German opponents made her look old several times in the first game. Above all, their technical level stands out. Lots of people can kick the ball and in women’s football the top performance has become much broader in recent years. But hardly any player makes good decisions on the pitch as reliably as the Barca star. Watching Putellas is a great pleasure again at the Arnold Clark Cup.

2. DFB can still hope for a successful EM

However, there is no reason to evaluate the performance of the DFB selection exclusively negatively. Even if German football seems tedious and slow these days, individual players during the tournament show that the future of the DFB can be bright.

Thanks to talented soccer players like Giulia Gwinn (22), Klara Bühl (21), Selina Cerci (21), Jule Brand (19), Nicole Anyomi (22) and Lena Oberdorf (20) the team that has been thrown together is still competitive . The Arnold Clark Cup is a huge opportunity for them: The talents are challenged accordingly and consequently also promoted, which still happens far too rarely in women’s football.

With a view to the 2027 World Cup, which will take place in Germany, the DFB can already draw on a wide pool of players who have the potential to one day advance into the world class. For this, however, it will also require a play system that bears a clearer signature than the current one.

The Arnold Clark Cup is just a continuation of the story that the DFB selection has written in recent years. The national coach is not lacking in technically talented players. It will be up to her in the summer to offer the talent the right conditions on and off the pitch. The performance in England could then point the way.

quote of the week

“I can only recommend the FA Player,” wrote Bianca Rech on Twitter on Sunday evening. The sporting director of FC Bayern Munich responded somewhat smugly to a tweet that criticized the transmission quality of ARD. The “FA Player” is an English platform that gives women’s football on the island an appreciative platform. There is nothing comparable in this country.

3. Women’s football gets too little attention in this country

Appreciation and visibility of German women’s football remain a problem. It starts with the question of where the Arnold Clark Cup will be broadcast. In Germany, ARD and ZDF are responsible for the games of the DFB selection – however, all games run exclusively in streams on the Internet.

The tournament is hardly advertised on the site itself. In addition, the ARD operates the smallest possible effort. There is no coverage of the games, there are a few highlights and live recordings from the empty stadiums at half-time, and agency articles appear afterwards. For people who are not actively looking for it themselves, the Arnold Clark Cup hardly ever takes place.

It is often argued that women’s football is not as popular because not enough people are interested in it. But that distorts the facts. For example, how do products sell in the supermarket if they are not placed in the checkout area but in the farthest corner of the store? Just because something is unfamiliar doesn’t make it worse or less entertaining.

Other countries have sufficiently demonstrated this in recent years. In Germany, there is still too little courage to break with established patterns. The argument against it is often easy. Visibility, accessibility and appropriate presentation – these remain central topics of the future.

This is how it goes now

For the DFB-Elf there is one last game against England (Wednesday, 7.30 p.m., zdf.de). If they can improve again and maybe even beat the hostesses, a conciliatory conclusion beckons. But apart from the results, the main thing is to get a good feeling for the upcoming European Championship.

Club football will continue next weekend. On Sunday, the Wolfsburg team will play their catch-up game from the previous matchday in sand (from 2 p.m., MagentaSport), then the quarter-finals of the DFB Cup will continue. The games at a glance:

• Carl Zeiss Jena – FC Bayern Munich (February 28, 6:30 p.m., Sky)
• SGS Essen – Bayer 04 Leverkusen (1.3., 7 p.m., DFB-TV)
• VfL Wolfsburg – SC Sand (2.3., 6 pm, DFB-TV)
• SV Henstedt-Ulzburg – Turbine Potsdam (2.3., 7 p.m., DFB-TV)