The second successive 1-0 win in Germany from the Stade du Hainaut has been a successful path to the Knockout phases. It is a safe journey. It’s going to take you to wait for tomorrow night for South Africa and China to play PR, and it’s definitely a stern test of their capacity after this battled win over a vibrant and harmful Spain.
Spain is proud of its attempts on the second best side of the world. The ball remained good, but they didn’t have clear opportunities. In their monumental Group B final against the Chinese you will have to be much more clinical.
“I think at least we’ve shown what Spain can do on the pitch. We were playing good football, but mistakes cost us dearly agains this strong side.We have to have patience. We gave everything to beat the second-best team in the world. We were able to dominate them in certain parts of the match. Obviously we weren’t able to put the cherry on top of the cake by getting a goal but – apart from one error that we were penalised for – we were able to bring that style of play.”
Jorge Vilda, Spain coach
We saw Dzsenifer Marozsan straight after a full time in the tunnel raising her weapons for the German victory but unfortunately limping a little bit towards her winning team-mates.
After the match, Spanish and German players swapped shirts. Mapi’s shirt was wanted by Dabritz, Visa Match Player. In the UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-finals, they all confronted one another last month. Oberdorf and Meseguer! Meseguer France 2019’s oldest Spanish player swaps shirts with the youngest member of the German team.
“At the end of the day what matters is the end result. We knew that it would be very difficult to play against Spain, a very strong opponent. It was a very fast game. It was not always easy for us, we were not always very compact. It’s a very difficult group. The first two matches were difficult and now we have six points. Maybe for other teams in other groups it was easier for them, it was more complicated for us. We don’t underestimate South Africa and we know we have to bring everything onto the pitch.”
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, Germany coach
Spain almost played the ideal game against Germany to win or draw. Almost excellent because they couldn’t transform their opportunities, despite being more aggressive in their attacking plays and improving their efficiency than South Africa. The team couldn’t get the outcome they wanted because of the absence of precision. For their enormous final group match against China, they will need to enhance this specific aspect.
The match today bore much resemblance with the first China PR match. Germany had to endure early fears and Spain could have been ahead, so that things started to click a bit better and in Voss-Tecklenburg’s charges, the half time reorganization played a large role with a second victory without conceding again.
Image: Kane Oosty/FIFA
