interview
Before the international match against Vietnam, national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg speaks in an interview about the mood among the German women’s soccer team, the status of preparations for the World Cup and the upcoming opponents.
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, the first days of preparing for the World Cup in Herzogenaurach are over. What is your first conclusion?
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg: Yes, very positive. We were all happy anyway that the preparations are finally starting. We’ve come a little way home. The preparation here before the last European Championships did us a lot of good, and we want to take that back with us. We already know the circumstances, it was all worked out very quickly.
The atmosphere among the players was also very, very good. Sure, they’ve all experienced something now, holidays and such. They gave each other an update on what they had been up to. Therefore, very lively and also very lively on the pitch. It was nice that we tried to be loud, to be active right away – and I’ve been very satisfied with the few training sequences we’ve had so far.
Live ticker: Germany – Vietnam Arrow right Internationals 2023 Arrow right
It sounds as if the first few days were an exchange on and off the pitch instead of having to run the 800 meters in a certain time.
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg: Yes, they don’t exist anymore anyway, the 800 meters in a certain time. We have worked a lot with small game forms, but this is also about communication. It’s nice when the girls have fun off the field and we feel like they’re looking forward to each other. This is a team that will now grow back together again very quickly. That’s why it’s always nice for us to be an observer. It was a really good atmosphere.
Now a World Cup participant is waiting with Vietnam. The team qualified for the first time. You’re also playing a team from Asia at the World Cup with South Korea. What do you expect from the game in Offenbach?
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg: This is an opponent who will be very disciplined here. They’ve been in Europe a bit longer now and have already acclimatised, played three games. They’ll try to challenge us defensively first, they’re very compact, they usually work from a three- or five-man formation and play with a lot of long balls.
I’m also curious to see how they implement it. Physically, it’s a slightly smaller team, so of course we want to put our dynamism into it, and we want to watch our game a lot. But we also know that we are just at the beginning of our training process. This is a game that we are deliberately putting in there, but it will not yet have the greatest significance.
The players from Munich have only just arrived and will not be playing. Other players cannot be there either. What can the spectators expect from your team?
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg: Every player wants to show themselves. For the players, it’s about gaining experience, taking the audience with them and showing their performance. We’re in the selection process, we know we have a quality squad. They know they have to perform to go to the World Cup. I expect players who really want to show how far they are. But we also have a slightly greater tolerance for mistakes because we haven’t been in ball training that long and maybe one or the other thing isn’t quite as automated.
Martina Knief conducted the interview.