The temperature is just under 30 degrees and there is a radiant blue sky – but a holiday is the last thing that Silvia Neid will be thinking about during the trip. The SheBelieves Cup, a world class four team tournament, will take place in Florida and Tennessee over the coming days and the Germany women’s national team will play their first game late tonight against France (23:00 CET). Neid, who will have been head coach of the team for eleven years in the summer, is looking forward to the next six months and is hoping to finish by winning Olympic gold.
Because of this the players have really been rolling their sleeves up on the training pitch at the Omni Resort, where Bayer Leverkusen also came to train recently in order to fine tune their team for the second half of the Bundesliga season. “Obviously we want to do well,” said Neid, ahead of the tough tests against France, World Cup bronze medalists England and World Champions the USA. “However, the results here are not the priority for me. It’s more important to find out what we need to work on for Rio.”
The countdown is under way to the Olympics in Brazil (3rd to 19th August), after which Neid will pass her post on to her assistant Steffi Jones. The rematch from the dramatic World Cup quarter final against France, which Germany won 5:4 on penalties, is the first challenge.
Rematches against World champions USA and bronze medalists England
The Germany team faced their other two opponents in the World Cup in Canada as well. Bronze medallists England, who they play on Sunday in Nashville, Tennessee (16:45 local time, 23:45 CET) beat them 1-0 in extra time in the third place play-off and before that fixture, the European champions had lost 2-0 to the USA in the semi-finals. They will face off against the Olympic winners and hosts on Thursday 10th March (19:45 local time, 1:45 CET) in Boca Raton, Florida, in the final match of the SheBelieves Cup.
Due to Nadine Angerer and Celia Sasic’s withdrawals from the squad, Neid is faced with the task of having to replace them in the team. Overall seven players have pulled out of the squad, including midfielders Simone Laudehr (exam) and Melanie Leupolz (swelling on her ankle). “Those that are here have the chance to press their claims,” commented Neid.
On the road to Rio, the DFB women will play two European Championship qualifiers in April. They will take on Turkey on 8th April (16:00 CET) and then play Croatia on 12th April (18:00 CET). The main Olympic preparations are set to begin on 20th June. So far the team has four training camps and two friendly matches planned for between then and 27th July.