The Germany women’s national team have lost their first game off the back of a successful qualification campaign for the 2015 World Cup in Canada. France were 2-0 winners in Offenbach after a 16th-minute own goal from Bianco Schmidt, followed by Elodie Thomis’ counterattacking goal just four minutes later.
The DFB-Team started well in front of 5,317 spectators in Hoffenheim. A cross from Lira Alushi after 25 seconds met the head of Celia Sasic, but the ball cleared the crossbar by a matter of inches. Only one minute later, Dzsenifer Marozsán came close with a shot from the edge of the area.
Quickfire double shocks Germany
A quieter period followed for Germany after their blistering start and France began to find their feet in the game. A long-range strike from Louisa Nécib was well pushed behind from captain Nadine Angerer, but the resulting corner was inadvertently turned into her own net by Schmidt. Not long after, Angerer had to pick the ball out of her net again: France countered and Thomis was able to round the German keeper, before easily slotting the ball into the empty net to make it 2-0.
Silvia Neid’s side were clearly rattled and some insecurity began creeping in to their build-up play. Angerer kept her cool though and pulled off a fine stop to keep the hosts at just the two goals down.
Bouhaddi makes up for error
It took until the final 15 minutes of the first half for Germany to rediscover their attacking prowess. France goalkeeper Bouhaddi cleared a long ball away just before Sasic got on the end of it, but it went straight to the feet of Simone Laudehr. The midfielder tried a to float the ball in and get the home side back in the game, but Bouhaddi just managed to get back in time to claw the ball off the line.
Neid made several changes at the break, bringing on four new faces in the form of Melanie Leupolz, Alexandra Popp, Pauline Bremer and Josephine Henning. But despite the shake-up, Germany were still struggling to get in and around the France penalty area. The visitors were defending smartly and broke up the home side’s attacks early.
France cleverly see out result
As the game entered its final stages, Germany began to look more and more threatening. Annike Krahn headed just over from a free kick, followed by a thunderous striker from Popp that narrowly cleared the target, albeit from an offside position. Despite getting into some good positions, the DFB-Team were unable to produce any further concrete chances.
Neid called had called on established personnel for the match. The defence in front of goalkeeper Angerer was made up of Schmidt, Krahn, Kathrin Hendrich and Babett Peter. Melanie Behringer, Marozsán, Laudehr, Anja Mittag and Alushi formed the midfield, with Sasic leading the line, but they were unable to avoid a 2-0 loss to a strong France side.
