Germany women 1-0 victors in Croatia

The Germany women’s national team stay on the trail of the 2017 European Championship finals in the Netherlands. After the goal frenzy on Friday against Hungary, Silvia Neid’s team achieved a 1-0 win over Croatia.

After the goal from Wolfsburg’s Alexandra Popp in the fourth minute giving Germany the result, they are sitting top of the group with two wins out of two, having scored 13 goals and conceded none. Croatia follow the table toppers with three points, while Turkey and Hungary have zero points. The next opponents will be Russia on the 22nd October.

Neid: "We were too nervous"

"It didn’t go as we wanted it to today. We were too nervous and had problems with our first touch," said Neid after her team ground out a result. "Croatia made the most of our mistakes and we never really got going. Overall, however, we are happy about the three points."

The head coach started the same team as she did against Hungary, using a 3-3-4 formation. The defence in front of Almuth Schult was comprised of Annike Krahn, Melanie Behringer and captain Saskia Bartusiak. Leonie Maier, Lena Goeßling and Tabea Kemme made up the midfield and Pauline Bremer, Anja Mittag, Alexandra Popp and Simone Laudehr lined up in attack.

The German strikers pushed Croatia deep into their half right from the off and went 1-0 up very early on as Popp slotted the ball home after a cross from Maier. Following the goal, German became increasingly dominant, achieving 90 percent possession and only allowing Croatia in their half once.

The biggest shortcoming of the team was not being able to convert their chances. Behringer, Bremer and Popp all has chances to make it 2-0 but failed to score. The hosts defend with their lives and fought for every blade of grass. The biggest chance the Germans had was when the Croatians gifted her ball, but she missed from five yards out.

Fitschen: "We should have been more clinical"

Sporting director Doris Fitschen analysed the inability of the team to convert chances. "Today we showed our biggest weakness. We didn’t have a problem on Friday because we took our chances, but today we weren’t able to do that."

Germany were also guilty of not taking their chances in the second half. With hardly any chances, tense build-up play, imprecise passes and the Croatian playing with their hearts on their sleeves, the second goal just didn’t come. Even with the substitutes Sara Däbritz and Bianca Schmidt, they failed to come up with anything.

In the 69th minute, Germany had another good opportunity through Bartusiak’s header, but it was scrambled off the line by Doris Bacic. Substitute Leupolz also had a shot in the 87th minute, but Bacic saved it. Behringer went on to miss a chance just a minute later. Despite being ineffectual up front, Silvia Neid’s team come away with two wins out of two. Points are points and you can’t expect anything less of Germany than 100%.