Five months after winning the European Championship, the Germany U17s women's dream of winning the World Cup has come to an end. The U17s were eliminated from the tournament on Wednesday by Spain, after losing 2-1 in a rematch of the Euros final.
In this interview with DFB.de, Bernhard looks back on the last two and a half weeks in Jordan and analyses the quarterfinal loss to Spain as well as looking forward to the next challenges with the U17s.
DFB.de: Anouschka Bernhard, after a hard fought quarterfinal, you’ve unfortunately exited the competition. What are your thoughts on the game?
Anouschka Bernhard: It’s very annoying that we haven’t qualified for the semi-final. We could have avoided losing that game, we didn’t start well, couldn’t find out game and allowed Spain too much of the ball. Mentally we were also too slow. Then we conceded two annoying goals, both of which actually weren’t well created by Spain. Therefore, by half time we were in a tricky situation. However, we came out well in the second half, dominated the game, had a better structure going forwards and created goal-scoring chances. We did, however, score too late. If it came earlier, the game would have certainly been different. But this is how we exit the competition.
DFB.de: You started the tournament well and finished top of your group.
Bernhard: In the group stage, we had very different games, but we performed well in all of them. The encounters with Cameroon and Venezuela were very physical, while the game against Canada was somewhat more tactical, particularly as the Canadians played a different system. We dealt with this well though and were able to enforce our own strengths, our attacking play. Our downfall through the whole tournament was our conversion of chances – we created a lot of opportunities but weren’t clinical enough.
DFB.de: What’s next for the players?
Bernhard: The older players born in 1999 will move on to the U19s in Febuary, where they’ll contest the qualification for the Euros, while younger ones born in 2000 will continue where they are and attend the winter training camp in January. In November, we also have two matches in which a few World Cup participators will play. In spring, we want to qualify again for the European Championship with the newly formed U17s squad.
DFB.de: What are your goals of the coming year?
Bernhard: To start with, the new team has to gel. Obviously, we always want to play for a medal, but we are still yet to qualify for the tournament yet so we have to concentrate on the next challenges which are the European Championship qualifiers.
[mmc/ms]
###more###
Five months after winning the European Championship, the Germany U17s women's dream of winning the World Cup has come to an end. The U17s were eliminated from the tournament on Wednesday by Spain, after losing 2-1 in a rematch of the Euros final.
In this interview with DFB.de, Bernhard looks back on the last two and a half weeks in Jordan and analyses the quarterfinal loss to Spain as well as looking forward to the next challenges with the U17s.
DFB.de: Anouschka Bernhard, after a hard fought quarterfinal, you’ve unfortunately exited the competition. What are your thoughts on the game?
Anouschka Bernhard: It’s very annoying that we haven’t qualified for the semi-final. We could have avoided losing that game, we didn’t start well, couldn’t find out game and allowed Spain too much of the ball. Mentally we were also too slow. Then we conceded two annoying goals, both of which actually weren’t well created by Spain. Therefore, by half time we were in a tricky situation. However, we came out well in the second half, dominated the game, had a better structure going forwards and created goal-scoring chances. We did, however, score too late. If it came earlier, the game would have certainly been different. But this is how we exit the competition.
DFB.de: You started the tournament well and finished top of your group.
Bernhard: In the group stage, we had very different games, but we performed well in all of them. The encounters with Cameroon and Venezuela were very physical, while the game against Canada was somewhat more tactical, particularly as the Canadians played a different system. We dealt with this well though and were able to enforce our own strengths, our attacking play. Our downfall through the whole tournament was our conversion of chances – we created a lot of opportunities but weren’t clinical enough.
DFB.de: What’s next for the players?
Bernhard: The older players born in 1999 will move on to the U19s in Febuary, where they’ll contest the qualification for the Euros, while younger ones born in 2000 will continue where they are and attend the winter training camp in January. In November, we also have two matches in which a few World Cup participators will play. In spring, we want to qualify again for the European Championship with the newly formed U17s squad.
DFB.de: What are your goals of the coming year?
Bernhard: To start with, the new team has to gel. Obviously, we always want to play for a medal, but we are still yet to qualify for the tournament yet so we have to concentrate on the next challenges which are the European Championship qualifiers.
###more###
