The German U18 women's national team won its second tournament game in Tomakomai, Japan. U18 women's national coach Franziska Busch's team defeated Slovakia 3-1 (1-0, 2-1, 0-0).
The German team started very courageously, and had several good moments in the opposing third right from the start. But then the Slovakians came into the game better, helped by two consecutive German penalties. The team of U18 women's national coach Franziska Busch survived these unscathed. The game was now characterized by several penalties on both sides, but neither team was able to capitalize on any of them. Just four minutes before half-time, Lilli Welcke scored through the legs of the Slovakian goalkeeper to make it 1-0 at half-time.
Five minutes had been played in the middle third when Luisa Welcke converted a follow-up shot from her sister Lilli to make it 2-0 for Germany. The team was now better able to cope with the Slovakians' powerful and aggressive forecheck and managed to initiate their own attacks again and again. The logical consequence was the 3-0, which Julia Kohberg scored with her first international goal in the first U18 tournament with a shot from the blue line. But just a minute later, the Slovakians were able to take advantage of a carelessness in the German defense and overcome Sofie Disl in the German goal to make it 3-1. Unlike in the previous two games, the German team failed to give a direct answer to the goal and so they went into the second break with a two-goal lead.
The start of the final third was once again marked by penalty times, which again could not be used by either side. The German team then gained more shares of the game and possession of the disc, but despite multiple shots, they were unable to get the disc into the opponent's goal. The last few minutes were once again in German hands, the team partially restricting their opponents in the attacking third. But a goal didn't want to be scored and so it remained 3-1 for them DEB-Selection.
Franziska Busch, U18 women’s national coach: “The game was very disjointed in the first third today due to a lot of penalty times. From the second third onwards we managed to bring structure to our game, create chances and then take advantage of them. Now we are preparing for tomorrow’s game in order to put in a good performance in the third game of the tournament.”
You can find all the statistics for the game HERE.