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National coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg and captain Alexandra Popp at the World Cup exit
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
When the German women's soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup in Australia, there were obvious communication breakdowns in the decisive match against South Korea. This emerges from the fourth part of the documentary season of »Born for this«. According to the report, players from Martina Voss-Tecklenburg's coaching team were not informed about the status of the parallel match between Morocco and Colombia during the last group game.
Eintracht Frankfurt substitute Laura Freigang told in the film, which can be seen in the ZDF media library and on Sunday (0.30 a.m.) on ZDF television, that they didn't know what the constellation was on the substitutes' bench: "I turned around and asked two fans how things stood." Morocco led 1-0 against Colombia at half-time, and the score between Germany and South Korea was 1-1. That's why captain Alexandra Popp's team absolutely needed a goal in the second half to avoid elimination.
"Do we have to?"
Freigang's club colleague Sara Doorsoun now reported that she had been talking to Felicitas Rauch next to her on the bench from the 70th minute onwards: "What do we do? Do you tell them the result? Isn't that what they say?" Striker Lea Schüller later came to the sidelines to drink. "I told her: You'll get a chance, and you'll do it! Then she looked at me and said: Do we have to? I just said yes. I think it was the 86th, 87th minute."
The documentary by directors Martina Hänsel and Björn Tanneberger also shows the scene after the final whistle, when the German women's team was eliminated for the first time in a World Cup preliminary round: "When the final whistle blew, I didn't know what was going on," the Wolfsburg native said later. Voss-Tecklenburg, the national coach at the time, then said to her goalscorer on the pitch: "We're out. Morocco won 1-0."
mfu/dpa