Football - Pope: European Championship success key to the perception of women's football

WOLFSBURG (AP) – National team captain Alexandra Pope watches a particularly challenging German football player at the European Championships in England in July 2022.

“It is important for women’s football in Germany that we do well and be successful there. We have to take the next step in women’s football in the public eye,” the 30-year-old woman from VfL Wolfsburg said in an interview on the DFB website. “It’s easiest if we can win in England as much as possible – ideally, the title.”

The DFB selection failed in the quarter-finals of the 2019 World Cup in Sweden and therefore missed the Olympic Games in Tokyo. National coach Martina Vos-Tecklenburg’s team’s abilities are hard to gauge for Pope, who last went missing due to a knee injury. “I think we have developed well. But it is difficult for me to make accurate predictions. We didn’t have rivals in qualifying who really gave us challenges,” Pope said.

The 2016 Olympic champion awaits a four-nation tournament in England in February. “We meet absolutely top teams with Spain, Canada and England. After that we are all smart,” he said. “Basically, though, I think we are a lot ahead of the 2019 World Cup in France, for example.”

The 111-time national player wants to be part of the Bundesliga at the start of the new year in February and then has six months to “get really fit”. England will be their first European Championships, “so I’m really looking forward to it. Until now, unfortunately, I’ve always been injured before the European Championships and couldn’t be there.”

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