German Fraulein National Team 2020 & beyond

Horst was never the dude for the long-term, but I will always credit him for giving the team back that stability and confidence. He was not perfect, but he was that old-school no nonsense coach, who the team loved to play for. And as a man, who never had anything to do with womens football, he credits the girls for widening his horizon and made him an active supporter of german women`s football.

He stepped up, when we seemed lost. For that...he`ll always be the man for me!!!




Onward and upward with Wück and Meinert

 

3:0 Brazil. Spain should have scored one goal more in their group match.

 

Germany's Bronze medal matches:
2000 Brazil 2:0
2004 Sweden 1:0
2008 Japan 2:0

 

Reading this pun made me groan.

 

Oh great... after another tiring ET with a lot of excessive running to compensate for the lack of tactics, Germany has to face a possession hogging Spain next, knowing this is literally the worst opponent for this teams suspect 4-4-2 system to face...

And after seeing numerous games now, I think we can all predict how bad Hrubesch's starting 11 will appear in the Bronze medal match, if it see's the mid-field having to try and contest an opponent who regularly establishes 75% possession...

Honestly... having seen Germany's u19 Euro team using the same system as the Olympic team, and find themselves completely dominated by Spain in comfortable victory. I don't even see how this will resemble anything like a legitimate contest lol.

Needing to transition as effectively as Colombia, or Brazil, if it means allowing Spain 77% possession, not happening, lol... The way Hrubesch persists with the same system, Spain will need to be truly awful to lose this match.

Spain's coach rotating between Bonmati, Hermoso, Guijarro, Putellas, while Hrubesch's best mid-fielder has been Popp....

 

Neid:What a catastrophic team. What a disaster. World champion, Olympic champions.

I don't want to say that tactics are overrated. I think there is a lack of top individual players. Germany did well at the Olympics within the scope of their possibilities. I think that has to do with money. Creating professional structures, creating conditions. In other countries a lot of money is invested in women's football. In the development, promotion and training of talent. It all has to do with money. In the past, Germany won just about everything in Europe, whether at youth or adult level. The club teams Frankfurt, Potsdam, Duisburg and Wolfsburg won European cups. That's how it is in Germany. You always want to be at the top, but not at any price. Germany was at the top for a long time.

 

I think it is not a coincidence that the german men and women national teams had so many bad results in the last decade.
As you said, money is a big reason and still is. Most women Bundesliga players still work a second job and that might have worked in the past, but those days are long over.

 

The good thing is, Spain might be more depressed. I was sure they would be the first team to beat the WC winner curse at the Olympics. Expecting to win gold and then fail, might be an advantage for Germany.

 

Her WC winning team, and her various Euro successes, were NOT achieved through producing the same low quality football as her Olympic Gold medal team.

And this knowing her final two years with the wnt, providing many many underwhelming performances (you see the poor quality of football during Germany's defeat to USA during 2015 WC..?), that tactically looked almost identical to the program wide football she's currently a key advisor too right now.

So being reductive on her past and present results, doesn't do anything but confuse the nature of discussing the current wnt. As understanding the reasons behind the last decade of program wide regression that's taken place, clearly has some factor of being under the low quality stewardship of this one particular woman.

Yes, we can all acknowledge her peak success was fantastic, but it's genuinely ignorant to pretend this success wasn't also built on the impressive work of the others that came before her; which is why it's been so bad once Neid stepped down, as she didn't actually help strengthen clear pathways for the next coach to attain any future success beyond her.

Only now, after a decade of Neid inspired failure, are Germany's senior wnt about to receive a legit full time coach. And this was being fought by Neid, who was pushing for Grings to carry on the tradition of Germany being a women's only head coaching position...

 

Huh..? The German side we see right now not close to it's best, but I feel like people will actively overlook this obvious fact, to instead continue pushing the same old narratives that Germany can't win because it's player pool lacks talent...

I mean, I can understand why some people won't understand the genuinely broken nature of Germany's national player analysis process, and how it allows the wnt program to make the type of stupid decisions which has resulted in the decade of slow regression.

But to suggest this Olympic team the absolute best Germany could have done within the "scope of their possibilities" is complete horse sh*t, as that fails to acknowledge the very obvious factors of injuries, and the various tactical/player analysis issues within wider German football culture.

Plus football a team sport that always allows a group to be far great than the sum of it's parts. It's always wild to see people actively ignore the role strong tactics will play in this game, to continue pushing their own agendas on why certain teams will fail, or succeed...

So you really believe Spain won a WC through their football association/domestic league, simply spending more money than USA, England, or Germany, lol.... And how does this idea of money pushing progress, correlate with a wnt like France, who part of a very strong football institution, and seen one of it's domestic clubs spend more money than anyone on the continent to lift the most UWCL titles in the history of women's European competition...?

Again... if this was as simple as the amount of money being spent in women's football, surely we'd live in a reality the USwnt wouldn't have lost a single game of football for over a decade...

But of course we see this one particular argument always appear at the end of Germany's tournament, whilst managing to skip right over various rival wnt's who all supposedly the current peak of modern women's football... even though I still see many of them with domestic infrastructure Germany would have found problematic years ago.

2024 probably going down as one of the worst in the recent history of German women's football, seemingly allowing peoples various long held bad takes, and negative sentiment for German football, to become very public lol

Again I'd ask... beyond the non specific intangible nature of clout, please show me where money spent has Spain, France, England, Netherlands, blowing Germany away in results thanks to superior professionalism, training conditions, and player development...?

Because other than the obnoxious levels of clout that follows certain leagues/wnt's, before this one particular year of football, Germany's results at various levels of this game have still been better than most of the nations I keep being told are infinitely better right now...

 

What does this even mean lol... One look online will show you no other nation has such a wide selection of their domestic clubs being able to win Europe's top club prize... none.

But it sounds like your saying within the modern era of the game, Germany still need to have Wolfsburg, Bayern, Frankfurt, Hoffenheim, all being at a credible UWCL wining level...

Yet it requires ignoring outside of Lyon, and now Barca, it clear Wolfsburg have been consistently producing one of the best club teams in Europe for a long time. Within that period of time, seeing Frankfurt manage to become the last Bundesliga club to lift the trophy, and an emerging Bayern reach the semi final stage twice.

But no, no, no.... the clout following the WSL surely reflected in them having clubs with far better UWCL succe.... oh, wait. No... it's the Dutch league with all it's succe... oh. Ah, it's Spain's league which is more than Barca right... damn it. I got it now, France has multiple clubs winning UWCL titles, right...

Seriously... if being on top of European club football the only way to justify international success/failure, there should be some very serious debates happening for other wnt's outside of people trying to once again correlate a club like Essen to the success or failure of Germany's wnt program.

 

Huh... so the optics of the Frauen-Bundesliga having clubs like Essen, with various players not being full time pro, is supposedly linked to the same culture of failure that's followed the men's national team lol...

If anybody wanting to find a clear correlation between the men and women's programs seeing major failures in recent years, there's a lot of very well researched information that shows you how and why this is a far deeper issue than how much money is being spent.

But I get it.. it's always easier to speculate on who's spending more money, even though it's not validated in any actual data, or results, in the recent history of football.

The last 5 men's world cup finals featuring France 3 times, Argentina 2 times, alongside Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherland's, Croatia all seen once.

The last 5 women's world cup finals featuring USA 3 times, Japan 2 times, alongside Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England all seen once.

It feels like people are missing the the forest for the trees if they believe money the big deciding factor of success here, or we're in a situation we won't see Germany back here at some point on both sides of the sport.

 

Looking at all the Euro nations during this tournament, I think Spain had the best path towards a final, and yet at no stage have they really performed to the standards they've recently set themselves.

Which is why I feel like Germany will probably become the moment they decide to wake up lol, completely exposing Hrubesch's system with them maintaining 75-80% possession, in a game Germany concede 20 something chances, lucky if they get a single shot on Spain's goal...

And if you ask why so negative, it's because I think we should already know what this looks like after witnessing how easy it would be for Spain's u19's to walk all over the exact same system...

Personally hoping Hrubesch can leave with a medal, it's hard to see how this happen now, facing an opponent like Spain who even bellow their normal levels, are still producing a quality of football this current German side simply can't compete with.

I seriously believe Germany would need to produce their best overall tactical performance in this tournament, to have any chance of beating Spain without going through ET and PK's...

 

So... how did Rauch get a 7, when she wasn't as good as Gwinn, or better than Hendrich... with me actually being pleasantly surprised with the lowered scores for the ineffective attack, even if they probably incorrect lol.

Looking at data Brand the most effective individual player on the field for either team..., with her wining a huge amount of her duels, passing in the high 60%, with a very impressive success rate in 1v1 dribbles.

It just another reminder that when it comes to Brand right now, her best qualities aren't actually positively effecting her teams ability to generate good offense; most of her time on the field never actually amounting to her team creating or scoring goals...

Bühl's score also not reflecting her actual work (she was very defensively responsible), but probably reflecting the general feeling of disappointment knowing her to one of the teams best players, yet not featuring prominently enough in the attack.

Plus Nüsken was literally no better than Minge, with Hegering most likely receiving a 9 as a direct result of her making a few very prominent contributions, when the reality actually saw her performance no more significantly impressive than the 4-1 defeat to USA lol.

 

@Lohmann

Proud of our boys

 

I wonder if Silvia Neid ist just kept around as a thank you for past accomplishments? Nia Künzer doesn`t seem to be on the Neid train.

 

I get what you`re saying,...heck with a right coach who uses the strenght of the players in a modern system we wouldn`t have had so many bad results.Or even an outside of the box thinking coach, who can inspire the players, can reach success. But money does help to built lasting structures in the women`s game. You see how fast pro clubs are able to get instant success and leapfrog women-only clubs. How long will teams like Essen and Potsdam survive in the next decade, when women prefer the pro clubs. Of course that alone doesn`t guarantee success, but it helps getting the best players.

You`re right...of course german men and women football have different problems, which is a whole other can of discussion.

 

Only when everything fails, we might start investing.

 

Have to disagree with you on Hegering. I thought she was the best german player. Hendrich suprised me and she was actually good. The goal was on Berger and Rauch. But without Schüller and Popp upfront it was almost impossible to get a goal, except for that last minute Freigang chance. Penalties was the best chance to get to the finals.

 

Our best player is out for the Spain match. I don't know if I watch this match.

 

Not only a bad day for the Basketballers. Congratulation to Spain for the Bronze medal.