The Germany coach, Christian W\u00fcck, has said his players must \u201cdo a lot of chasing\u201d and \u201csuffer\u201d in order to beat Spain in Zurich on Wednesday and reach the Euro 2025 final.<\/p>\n
Spain, the world champions, are the clear favourites after winning all of their four games in Switzerland, scoring 16 goals. Germany lost 4-1 against Sweden<\/a> in the group stage and had to go the distance against France in the quarter-final, winning on penalties<\/a> despite having had Kathrin Hendrich sent off after 13 minutes.<\/p>\n W\u00fcck is aware that Spain will have more of the ball but is confident that Germany have the weapons to hurt Montse Tom\u00e9\u2019s side. \u201cWe all know the Spanish players and how they stand out because of their passing game,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will have to do a lot of chasing and we have to suffer. We also have to wait for the right moments [to go forward] but these moments will come.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to show our strengths in attack, which we couldn\u2019t really do against France, when we have the ball. We have our philosophy and our principles and how we want to play as a German team and they haven\u2019t changed. We want to go into the duels and actively win the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n Spain have had one more day\u2019s rest, having beaten Switzerland 2-0 on Friday, before Germany\u2019s energy\u2011sapping win against France. Germany produced a heroic display after Hendrich\u2019s sending-off for pulling Griedge Mbock\u2019s hair in her own penalty area. They went 1-0 down from the resulting penalty but Sjoeke N\u00fcsken equalised in the first half before a rearguard action enabled Germany to take the game to penalties.<\/p>\n Rebecca Knaak, one of the defenders who had to deal with sustained France pressure, said the performance had set the benchmark for the players\u2019 work rate: \u201cThe game against France showed what is needed in terms of fighting spirit, passion, desire and unity. Those are the values that we have to embody and they will be important against Spain, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Germany won eight out of nine European championships between 1989 and 2013 (the first secured by West Germany) but countries such as Spain \u2013 and England \u2013 have moved ahead of them. They did reach the Euro 2022 final, losing against the Lionesses, but the following year\u2019s World Cup was another step back, the team going out at the group stage.<\/p>\n Germany\u2019s Jule Brand<\/a><\/p>\n W\u00fcck \u2013 whose appointment was announced in March 2024, with his first game against England in October \u2013 has introduced a more attacking style with the wingers Jule Brand and Klara B\u00fchl crucial to his tactics. Both players have been in fine form in Switzerland, with W\u00fcck picking out the former for particular praise on Tuesday. \u201cJule\u2019s performances from the first game against Poland through to the quarter-final against France speak for themselves. She has taken the next step up and proved that she is continuing to develop. I am very pleased with her.\u201d<\/p>\n Spain have their own array of attacking players with Esther Gonz\u00e1lez (four goals) and Al\u00e8xia Putellas (three) among the tournament\u2019s four top scorers, and Cl\u00e0udia Pina and Athenea del Castillo one behind. Putellas said on Tuesday that they had to keep their focus to reach the final.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Moving the Goalposts<\/p>\n No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women\u2019s football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to do what we\u2019ve been doing so far \u2013 and try to be perfect,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are only four teams left so you have to get as close to excellence as possible, even if it doesn\u2019t guarantee a win. But we believe we can get to our best version, both individually and collectively, in order to advance to the final. It will be a tough match, like any semi-final, but we have the utmost excitement and confidence to keep moving forward and make history once again.\u201d<\/p>\n Al\u00e8xia Putellas (right) helps Cl\u00e0udia Pina celebrate the goal that put Spain 2-0 up against Switzerland. Photograph: Anthony Anex\/EPA<\/p>\n Germany will be without the suspended Hendrich and Carlotta Wamser as well as the injured Giulia Gwinn and Sarai Linder but Tom\u00e9, the Spain coach, said she expected a difficult game. \u201c[The missing players] is not something we\u2019re thinking about,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know Germany are always strong; physically they\u2019re very good, as we saw in the match against France. Tomorrow they will field their best team to play against us, just as we will.<\/p>\n \u201cExcitement is the main driving force of this team. This is the tournament where we\u2019re feeling most comfortable. I see a mature team, eager to compete tomorrow. I see a confident team, excited and looking forward to the match \u2013 I don\u2019t see them nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Germany coach, Christian W\u00fcck, has said his players must \u201cdo a lot of chasing\u201d and \u201csuffer\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-283516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}