The Women's U20 national team have concluded their preparation in ahead of the World Cup Papua New Guinea. Maren Meinert's team spent a week in Spain and took part in a Six Nations Tournament. "For me, the experience was far more important than the results. We want to be challenged by the best." There were three games on schedule for Germany and U23 sides: a 1-0 loss to England, a 3-0 win against Norway and yesterday's to Japan. After the results, we caught up with the head coach to gather her thoughts.
DFB.de: How happy are you with the start of this World Cup year?
Maren Meinert: This experience was very important for us. We played against three opponents of the highest quality and we raised our game throughout the week. We know what we have to work on and do better ahead of the World Cup. The game against Japan yesterday was an example. It showed what we lacked when coming up against opponents like this. It's important that we play games like that; that's the point of the competition. I am happy. Every player knows what we have to do for the big competition later in the year.
DFB.de: What aspects of your game do you need to work on and what's already going well?
Meinert: We want to work on moving the ball faster and working ourselves out of tricky situations under pressure. I liked the will of the players to find solutions. We had to do a lot of defending against Japan but we functioned well as a team.
DFB.de: How was the atmosphere in the camp?
Meinert: We are a team and everyone made an effort. But you expect that of them. Anyway, I was happy that they all pulled together.
The Women's U20 national team have concluded their preparation in ahead of the World Cup Papua New Guinea. Maren Meinert's team spent a week in Spain and took part in a Six Nations Tournament. "For me, the experience was far more important than the results. We want to be challenged by the best." There were three games on schedule for Germany and U23 sides: a 1-0 loss to England, a 3-0 win against Norway and yesterday's to Japan. After the results, we caught up with the head coach to gather her thoughts.
DFB.de: How happy are you with the start of this World Cup year?
Maren Meinert: This experience was very important for us. We played against three opponents of the highest quality and we raised our game throughout the week. We know what we have to work on and do better ahead of the World Cup. The game against Japan yesterday was an example. It showed what we lacked when coming up against opponents like this. It's important that we play games like that; that's the point of the competition. I am happy. Every player knows what we have to do for the big competition later in the year.
DFB.de: What aspects of your game do you need to work on and what's already going well?
Meinert: We want to work on moving the ball faster and working ourselves out of tricky situations under pressure. I liked the will of the players to find solutions. We had to do a lot of defending against Japan but we functioned well as a team.
DFB.de: How was the atmosphere in the camp?
Meinert: We are a team and everyone made an effort. But you expect that of them. Anyway, I was happy that they all pulled together.
