Germany are the most successful team in UEFA Women’s Championship history with a grand total of eight tournament wins to their name, including one as ‘West Germany’. An incredible six-tournament winning streak came to an end in 2017, as The Netherlands, not Germany, ended the tournament victorious for the very first time. This year, the Germans will undoubtedly be hoping to set the record straight and put themselves back on their perch under Martina Voss-Tecklenburg.
Several of their players will come into the tournament off the back of some encouraging individual campaigns at club level. Although Frauen Bundesliga side Wolfsburg bowed out of the Champions League in the semi-finals to Jonatan Giráldez’s Barcelona Femení, Wolfsburg’s Tabea Waßmuth ended the tournament as the second-highest scorer with 10 while Bayern Munich’s Lea Schüller ended the campaign as Frauen Bundesliga’s top scorer on 16 to help ensure her side pushed Wolfsburg fiercely in the title race. Voss-Tecklenburg will hope these two club rivals will work some magic alongside each other to give her side a fearsome forward line this summer.
Germany don’t enter this tournament as favourites but it’d be foolish to write them off in this competition and they should at the very least progress to the advanced rounds. In our tactical analysis and team-focused scout report, we aim to provide some in-depth analysis of Germany, Voss-Tecklenburg’s tactics and the key talking points regarding their performance in offensive, defensive and transitional phases.
Predicted Starting XI
This section of our analysis will focus on our predicted Germany starting XI. Firstly, though, we must ask: what are the options? Well, look no further than figure 1 which provides an age scatter plot featuring all of the names present on Germany’s current provisional squad for the European Championships, accurate as of the time of writing.
Of this 28-woman squad, 13 players fit into what we’ve marked off as the ‘peak age range’ of 24-30. Five of those players are on the border to either fitting into the ‘youth’ category or the ‘experienced’ category. Then, looking at those outside of the peak age range, it’s clear from this graph that far more of this German team fall under ‘youth’ than fall under ‘experienced’, indicating that this is quite a young squad, though they do still have plenty of key players in the peak age-range who’ll likely need to assume leadership roles in the young squad for this summer’s tournament.
As for our predicted starting XI, see figure 2; we’ve gone for a 4-3-3 shape as this is the formation that Voss-Tecklenburg has set her side up in most often leading up to this tournament and in goal, we’ve gone for Eintracht Frankfurt’s Merle Frohms, who wears Germany’s number one shirt and we imagine will retain the number one position for the Euros.
In front of her, we’ve gone for a back four of two attacking full-back options in Wolfsburg’s Felicitas Rauch on the left and Bayern Munich’s Giulia Gwinn on the right, either side of Bayern’s Marina Hegering at left centre-back and Eintracht Frankfurt’s Sophia Kleinherne at right centre-back. These two women have lined up alongside each other for the national team in the past and we believe that the two complement each other’s playing styles quite well to form a potentially formidable partnership at the heart of Die Nationalelf’s backline.
We’ve put a midfield three of Wolfsburg duo Lena Oberdorf (holding) and Svenja Huth along with former PSG player Sara Däbritz in the heart of Die Nationalelf. This was a tough area of the pitch to decide on but we feel Oberdorf offers more than any other player as the holding midfielder to cover for her teammates defensively and control play along with Däbritz, who offers another solid option in possession and will likely be given a little more freedom to roam forward with the ball, though not as much as Huth, who we imagine will be the main creative force of this midfield operating in the right half-space and aiming to get into crossing positions from there quite frequently.
In attack, Germany have many exciting options to choose from, including Huth, who we’ve included in midfield but could easily feature in the front three off the right too as she has done in recent games. However, we’ve chosen her Wolfsburg teammate Tabea Waßmuth on the right — with the striker ending the season on fire and featuring quite often on the right along with in the centre of attack. She plays alongside Bayern Munich’s Lea Schüller at centre-forward and the final member of our starting XI, Wolfsburg’s newest recuit Jule Brand who we imagine will play at left-wing. We’ll go into more detail on specific areas of the pitch and the options within them later in this scout report which could help to explain our decisions a little bit more.
Attacking phases
Before going into detail on specific areas of the pitch and the options that Voss-Tecklenburg has, I’d like to outline some key points regarding her tactics and strategy as Die Nationalelf boss. We’ll first provide an overview and some key points about her side in attacking phases, then look at defensive phases and finally, we’ll look at Germany in transitional phases. Again, these sections of analysis will help with explaining our starting XI selections as well as, perhaps, some of Voss-Tecklenburg’s provisional squad selections.
Firstly, let’s use this offence-focused pie radar in figure 3 and see what it tells us about Germany’s attacking style of play. It’s evident that Germany like to dominate the ball but they also like to get the ball forward with great regularity and play vertically, as is evident from their high percentile ranking in forward passes per match. They tend to take few long shots, instead working the ball into high-xG shooting positions and are generally quite efficient with their shooting in terms of accuracy as a result.
Figure 4 shows us Germany’s general offensive shape, with their 4-3-3 becoming more of a 2-4-1-3 or 2-3-2-3 (depending on the position of one of the ‘8s’ and whether they’ve dropped deep to sit alongside the holding midfielder or whether they’ve pushed high to operate just behind the forward line alongside the other ‘8’). It’s common to see Germany’s centre-back duo forming a solid and reliable base of their offensive shape while the full-backs advance to sit on either side of their midfield three, which figure 4 also shows; the full-backs will be responsible for providing the offensive width for their team as play progresses upfield.
The midfield three, meanwhile, are generally quite fluid with lots of movement going on. We typically see the holding midfielder remain slightly deeper but the other two midfielders have licence to roam about, be that to form a double-pivot alongside the holding midfielder if that’s where they’re needed or move higher or rotate with their midfield partner at the ‘8’ position.
The forwards will then play quite narrow and look to make alternating movements with some looking to link up with the midfielders and some looking to make darting runs at diagonal angles in behind the opposition’s backline to give their deeper players lots and lots of options.
During the early attacking phase (build-up), we always see Germany’s centre-backs split very wide on either side of the goalkeeper who’ll be required to perform the ‘sweeper-keeper’ role in this team and essentially become a third centre-back during build-up and, at times, in ball progression too. It’s common to see Frohms coming well outside of her box as Germany seek to dominate the opposition in terms of possession and effectively break past their first line of defence; we see an example of this from a recent Germany game in figure 5.
This movement from the centre-backs in the early stages of possession (often immediately from the goal-kick) creates space for the goalkeeper to come outside the box, be brave and operate as a sweeper-keeper, while this also gives the full-backs the signal to push forward as the centre-backs are now occupying an area that’d be right on top of them should they stay in their typical full-back position. As a result, this basically sends the full-backs forward to operate on either side of midfield — where Voss-Tecklenburg wants them to be.
Germany look to build out from the back via short passes and create passageways through the opposition’s defensive shape in this way. Generally, this works out quite well for them thanks to their players’ familiarity and suitability for this type of football, particularly the centre-backs with our centre-back duo in this squad representing a couple of very comfortable and capable players in possession. However, they can at times still be vulnerable to a well-organised and aggressive high press; there are plenty of examples of Voss-Tecklenburg’s team getting forced into individual errors in sensitive areas of the pitch as a result of the opposition’s high press, and I’d say teams should look to test Germany and press them high if they’re capable of doing so.
We see an example of Germany facing up against a high-pressing Portugal in figure 6 and we see one Portugal player, in particular, marking Germany’s holding midfielder tightly. This can, of course, happen at times during the build-up and as we alluded to earlier, it’s common to see one of Germany’s ‘8s’ (it would be Däbritz more often in our starting XI) dropping in beside the holding midfielder to support her and provide another option for the goalkeeper and centre-backs. We see an example of this in figure 6. This is an intelligent way that Die Nationalelf look to break the opposition’s press even when facing off against a very well-organised and intelligent pressing system.
In the final third, we know Germany’s full-backs provide the offensive width in the squad and we know the wingers tend to sit narrower making diagonal runs in behind the backline. We see an example of this, along with a ball carrier in a wide right-sided position that we think Huth may be perfect for in this setup, in figure 7. It’s really common to see Germany’s wide forwards making in-to-out runs in behind the opposition’s backline (and in between the centre-back and full-back) while it’s also very common to see Germany’s full-backs making surging runs forward from deep. We see both in figure 7 to give this ball carrier options.
We also see from this image how Germany like to create wide overloads in the final third to break through the opposition and create crossing opportunities. Here, the aggressive and intelligent runs from the full-back and wide forward create a 2v1 versus the opposition’s full-back (pretty much a 3v1 if you include the ball carrier). This is incredibly difficult to defend against and if Germany can create some of these in the Euros, they won’t struggle to create chances too.
Defensive phases
Next up, we’ll look at Germany’s performance in defensive phases of play. Again, we’ll first look at a pie radar (this time focusing on defence) and see what that tells us about Germany’s defensive style before then looking at some in-game examples to explain some points we feel relevant about Germany’s defence based on our video analysis.
As figure 8 indicates and as you might suspect, Germany are typically aggressive without the ball. Voss-Tecklenburg likes her team to win the ball far away from their own goal but close to the opposition’s goal — in part to create opportunities to then score from a transition to attack close to the opposition’s goal, which would typically be very dangerous. This is evident from Germany’s low percentile ranking in PPDA, along with high percentile ranking in recoveries per match, recoveries in the final third, defensive duels per match and interceptions. They’re a very defensively-active team which plays a part in their possession dominance and the profiles necessary for the squad.
Germany usually defend in a 4-1-4-1 shape (we see just the second 4-1 of that shape in figure 9). They typically defend in a position-oriented manner, generally looking to corral the opposition to one side of the pitch before players shift over to that side from the centre and the opposite wing to trap the opposition there with no near passing options available and no opportunity to switch the ball due to the immediate pressure on the ball carrier. This is why we see the right-winger occupying a very central position in figure 9. Here, we also see that the opposition have opted to turn and send the ball back to the goalkeeper to try and escape Germany’s pressure, with no opportunity to play forward left open for them.
As the ball made its way back to the ‘keeper, the centre-forward followed aggressively, as did the right central midfielder and right-winger. Now, in figure 10, after the opposition ‘keeper has passed to their left centre-back, we see that the right central midfielder has advanced to pick up the opposition’s holding midfielder while the right-winger has advanced from her previous central position to be sitting just behind the left centre-back to put her under pressure, along with the striker, as she receives the ball here. The Germans force the opposition centre-back into an initial negative touch as she’s forced to face her own byline but from there, the receiver does brilliantly to turn out onto her left foot and send the ball to her supporting left-back.
This was some very intelligent play and great technical ability on display from the left centre-back but she was forced to be very, very good here to escape Germany’s aggressive pressure. Not every player Germany come up against will perform this well every time and their aggressive pressure will create chances for them, as well as stifle the opposition’s build-up close to their own goal, which is exactly what Voss-Tecklenburg wants.
We see another example of Germany’s aggressive pressing in figures 11-12. Firstly, in figure 11, we see German bodies closing in on an opposition ball carrier in a deep right position, with that player on the receiving end of a pass just before this image. We see Germany’s left-winger and left central midfielder applying immediate pressure here, with the left-back positioning herself aggressively in support out wide and the holding midfielder doing the same to block a potentially devastating passing lane through the centre. Meanwhile, figure 11 also shows how Germany’s right central midfielder, left centre-back, centre-forward and right-winger have shifted over towards the left — though to a lesser extent — to support the pressing players too. It’s important for Germany that when someone moves into a particular player’s zone, they jump immediately to cover that player, especially when the ball is played to that player. It’s then the responsibility of her teammates to provide adequate cover for her to act so aggressively.
The organised and aggressive pressure on the ball carrier here leaves her with little choice but to send the ball backwards, triggering Germany’s press to push up and squeeze the opposition even more, which we see as we progress into figure 12.
As the ball makes its way back to the opposition’s keeper, Germany’s centre-forward has a crucial role to play. She must jump immediately to close the ‘keeper down, yes, but also to close the passing lanes to the opposite wing and prevent the ‘keeper from turning out to avail of the potential switch of play. If the goalkeeper is allowed to turn out here, it’d be disastrous for Germany as they have their players oriented to the left-wing right now. As a result, it’s crucial that they keep the pitch cut in half and keep the opposition enclosed on this wing, which the centre-forward manages to achieve here as she presses quickly and more importantly intelligently to cut the passing lanes to the right and make it impossible for the ‘keeper to turn out without showing too much of the ball to the centre-forward.
As play moves on from figure 12, we see the ‘keeper panic and send the ball out of play on the left wing, giving Germany an excellent chance to build into the opposition’s box via a high throw-in. This passage of play provides an excellent example of why Voss-Tecklenburg likes her side to press high so much, as they can create excellent attacking opportunities as a result of such an approach, as well as just stopping the opposition’s attack before it really gets going.
It’s paramount that Germany leave no opposition player with space to receive and turn, as this can lead to their defensive structure being cut through like a knife through butter. This means the midfielders and forwards must be constantly alert and disciplined to cover options that enter their zone, as well as good communicators with their teammates to ensure everyone is aware of where the danger is and whose responsibility it is to deal with it. Figure 13 shows a lack of organisation in Germany’s mid-block versus England, which allowed a midfielder to receive inside their defensive shape just behind their first line and cut through them quickly, which ultimately put Die Nationalelf in a very tough position.
Firstly, figure 13 shows England playing the ball to a free woman in midfield behind Germany’s centre-forward, alongside the left-winger and in front of the left central midfielder. Nobody immediately picks this option up, allowing her to receive and turn with freedom before the left central midfielder eventually pushes up and tries to close her down.
Moving into figure 14, the left central midfielder was too slow to jump as the danger became apparent and her late movement simply served to allow space behind her to open up for the next receiver, the opposition wide woman on the right-wing, to receive and charge into. This example shows how important it is for Germany’s players to be constantly alert and organised, as well as good communicators. All of this, along with, obviously, physical capabilities, is crucial when it comes to operating an aggressive press effectively. So, Germany must limit instances like this in the summer to stand a chance against the cream of the crop in this competition.
Transitions
Thirdly, we’ll look at Germany’s performance in transitional phases. This section of analysis will take a look at Germany both in transition to attack and in transition to defence via some in-game examples based on our video analysis of Voss-Tecklenburg’s team in action.
Starting with transition to defence, figure 15 shows an example of Germany’s rest defence structure. As Germany’s play progresses into the chance creation phase, their full-backs typically end up on either side of the front three and we see that here in figure 15, although they’ve narrowed their positioning at this point to try and contend with the opposition’s counter-attack via counter-pressing before this image. Other than the full-backs, though, Germany’s shape looks pretty much as you’d expect for a 4-3-3/4-1-4-1 base shape. As mentioned earlier when discussing their build-up and ball progression, the two centre-backs form a base for the team to build off while the three-woman midfield triangle sits just in front of them with the holding midfielder sitting slightly deeper than her teammates in this position. Of course, this also serves to form a base 2-3 shape for their rest defence, as figure 15 depicts.
Similar to when discussing their pressing tactics, it’s important that Germany’s midfielders, in particular, possess good spatial awareness, decision-making and physical traits as the opposition begin to break through the centre. Generally, Voss-Tecklenburg wants her team counter-pressing with high intensity and to defend aggressively to win the ball as far up the pitch — and away from their own goal — as possible. On this occasion in our example, the opposition have managed to cut through Germany’s midfield again as the press didn’t close the opposition down enough and ultimately gave them too much space to play with, leaving forward passing options in too much space which allowed the opposition to progress. If teams can expose Germany in transition like this during the summer should the Germans not counter-press effectively enough, which is certainly a possibility and something we’ve seen at times, then this will be a weakness in their game.
A solid defensive work rate is important for everyone in this German team, including the forwards. The players who start in Voss-Tecklenburg’s team will need to be good at defending on the front foot and also comfortable with tracking back should the opposition progress beyond their initial press to help out those positioned deeper. We see an example of Germany’s right-winger dropping deep to help her side out in figure 16 and as play moves on from this image, we see the winger successfully regain possession from the opposition ball carrier out wide, demonstrating some effective defensive effort on her behalf.
The right-winger goes on to link up with the ball-near central midfielder via a one-two after regaining possession before she moved into the position we see her occupying in figure 17. From here, the winger can drill a through ball around the outside of the opposition’s widest defender currently in the backline, finding the centre-forward’s run. Note, again, the in-to-out running path of the attacker in the forward line — this type of run, while also being angled between two opposition defenders, is extremely common from Germany’s attackers; we see this kind of movement regularly during settled attacks and in transitions.
The run works well with Germany’s tendency to break into the final third via wide overloads and if there is more than one player in the forward line at the time of the pass being played, this kind of run that we’ve seen in both figure 17 and figure 7 now from the ball-near player can also serve to create space for a teammate positioned closer to goal, as this movement can attract a centre-back out wide, thus creating more space centrally too. So, expect to see Germany’s playmakers getting their heads up and looking for this kind of movement from those in the front three in the European Championships.
We see one more example of a German counter-attack in figures 18-19, this time with Die Nationalelf beginning their counter-attack from deep. The ball was turned over by Germany just before this image and we see the ball carrier immediately looking to get her team upfield and away from their own goal. She’s helped by some intelligent movement from the midfielder marked beside her in this image, as that player darts out to support and create a 2v1 overload with the ball carrier against the opposition player looking to close down the dribbler.
As play moves on from here, we see the ball carrier actually take up the option offered to her by her midfield teammate as she plays her through in the centre to continue Germany’s progress through Portugal’s midfield in transition.
That midfielder then ends up attracting plenty of attention from opposition players as she enters the middle third of the pitch but Portugal’s pressure isn’t good enough to stop the ball carrier from threading a wonderfully-timed and well-weighted through ball into the striker’s in-to-out running path, again showing how Germany’s players are very familiar with each other’s movement in this team, with the midfielders well aware of how and where their attackers will typically go as they look to break beyond the opposition’s backline. So, some intelligent decision-making, good technical play and familiarity with one another helped Germany to get out of their own half and into the opposition’s in this passage of play and Voss-Tecklenburg will be relying on these qualities from her players if they’re to produce some successful transitions in the Euros. Germany can hurt teams in this phase of play but it relies on the aforementioned qualities.
Defenders
Now, returning to the player’s we’ve selected, again we’ve gone for Frohms in goal, Rauch at left-back, Gwinn at right-back, Hegering at left centre-back and Kleinherne at right centre-back and we feel these players certainly offer Germany what they need in the corresponding positions. As is evident from our tactical analysis in the previous three sections, Germany require a ‘keeper who’s comfortable with her feet and coming off her line. Frohms matches that description from the available options, hence why she’s been wearing the number one shirt.
As for the full-backs, it’s clear that Germany require two players who are going to play a largely attacking role and offer a lot inside the final third, essentially acting as wingers in the team’s offensive 2-3-5 as they move into the chance creation phase. Over the last calendar year, Rauch has produced an impressive 5.29 xA while Gwinn has produced 4.71 xA, both of which rank extremely highly when compared with other German full-backs.
Gwinn is a great attacking option at full-back who’s capable of providing an option on either wing. However, she has generally been a slightly less reliable crosser than our other starting full-back, Rauch — although crossing varies a lot and isn’t at all the only indicator one should use as to whether or not the player should be on the pitch, even if it is an important aspect of that particular role. The flexibility of Gwinn to cover both wings will be valuable in tournament football.
As for the centre-backs, Hegering and Kleinherne are both solid options on the ball, with Hegering, in particular, representing an excellent option when it comes to progressing her team through the thirds, having made an impressive 9.61 progressive passes per 90 over the last calendar year. Kleinherne is a relatively safe and secure passer when necessary while Hegering is also capable of playing this way but tends to take more risks and be braver on the ball. The team will benefit from Kleinherne’s composure, in that regard, as they need players in deep areas who won’t crumble under pressure. This isn’t to say Hegering and/or Kleinherne won’t struggle if pressed hard — we think they might — however, they give their team the best chance of playing out from the back as they hope to, while Kathrin Hendrich presents another option that could be serviceable backup in this area.
We like the Hegering/Kleinherne duo as well because of how they complement each other off the ball. Kleinherne is noticeably more aggressive than Hegering while the latter prefers to operate in a more passive role and from our video analysis, this combination works quite well, with both players demonstrating a good understanding with the other, so Voss-Tecklenburg may be hoping to bank on what appears like good chemistry in such an important area of the pitch this summer.
Midfielders
Lena Oberdorf will be required to sit at the base of Germany’s midfield, offering an option behind the first line of pressure for the centre-backs and ‘keeper to aim for, as well as offering a nearby passing option for her midfield partners to link up with if needed. Oberdorf is an excellent ball progressor and in a team that likes to dominate but at the same time play vertically when possible, this will be an important quality in the middle of the park. Furthermore, Oberdorf’s ability to read the game will be important in defensive phases and in transition to defence, as we analysed in the previous sections how important the holding midfielder’s role is in this team in that regard.
Another option for this role in the squad include Wolfsburg’s Lena Lattwein, who’s a very good option in terms of ball retention but perhaps doesn’t offer as much progression as Oberdorf does.
Alongside her on the left, we’ve gone for Däbritz who is great with ball retention but is comfortable enough to progress via carries and will enjoy the freedom offered in this role to get forward and supply those ahead of her while also being able to drop deep alongside Oberdorf and offer support there when required. Another option for this position is the experienced Alexandra Popp who — yes, has normally been a striker — but has also been dropping deeper and has plenty of experience under her belt now operating as a left central midfielder. So, as an attacking option in this position, Popp could offer a versatile squad option — always helpful in tournament football.
At right central midfield, we’ve gone for Svenja Huth. Again, Huth has played plenty of games on the wing but we feel she’d be an ideal fit for the deeper position just behind the front three in this team because of how she can supply the runners ahead of her thanks to her excellent creative passing ability. Furthermore, as we saw back in figure 7, Germany’s right central midfielder can end up in a good crossing position in the right half-space in the chance creation phase, which is a position and role that’d suit Huth very well so all in all, we feel she offers Germany an excellent option as the more attacking member of the midfield three from right central midfield. Another potential option in this position is Bayern Munich’s Lina Magull, who’s played plenty of games on the right of Germany’s midfield as the team’s most attacking midfielder of late. Magull is another who could easily supply the runners from in-to-out ahead of her with through balls behind the opposition backline and will almost certainly be a member of Voss-Tecklenburg’s final squad, in our view.
Forwards
As for the forwards, we’ve gone for Jule Brand on the left, Tabea Waßmuth on the right and Lea Schüller through the middle. Starting with Brand, she is certainly more comfortable on the left and we feel she’s the best option for this position in terms of offering creativity, dribbling quality and a runner in behind. Simply put, she’s Germany’s most dangerous left-sided attacker and so she just pips Klara Bühl into our starting XI, though both women offer a lot of what Voss-Tecklenburg will be looking for in this area of the pitch and we’d expect both to see game time this summer.
Centrally, we’ve gone with Schüller although Waßmuth also offers a very comfortable and solid option in this position. However, coming off the back of an extremely prolific season at club level, it didn’t feel right to leave Schüller out of the team altogether and Waßmuth is equally comfortable with playing on the right so this felt like a sensible way of approaching the squad selection. Additionally, Waßmuth offers much more than Schüller defensively and we feel this will be more valuable on the wing than it will be centrally. As a result, we feel Schüller will start centrally though Waßmuth may be first-choice backup here and could see some game time centrally.
On the right, of course, Waßmuth is our go-to thanks to a lot of the reasons we discussed in the previous paragraph. Waßmuth is a dangerous attacker who’ll be looking to play quite narrow on the right-wing a lot of the time while also offering plenty in terms of defensive effort. Another option on the right is provided by Nicole Anyomi who can also offer plenty of creativity from the wing as well as intelligent runs in behind and great defensive effort. Again, I’d expect both of these names to feature at some point for Germany during the tournament. We also can’t rule out the possibility of Huth playing in this position and looking to be more of a traditional winger from here, exercising her crossing directly from the right-wing, though she offers far less in terms of defensive work than Waßmuth and Anyomi, so may not feature in this position as a result, due to the importance that will be placed on the wingers tracking back and engaging actively in the team’s pressing, as we analysed in previous sections of this scout report.
Best Performer
For our ‘best player’ section, we’re spoiled for choice thanks to the plethora of outstanding attacking options, vital midfield pieces and important defensive choices at Voss-Tecklenburg’s disposal. However, we’ve chosen to go into detail on Huth for this section because regardless of where she ends up playing in the team, we feel Voss-Tecklenburg should certainly find a way to maximise her creativity and attacking output, and if she manages to do so, then this can only work out well for Germany.
Figure 20 breaks down Huth’s domestic performances with Wolfsburg for the last calendar year and compares her statistics in each noted area with the league (Frauen-Bundesliga) median. As we can see, she’s an elite attacking midfielder, from an attacking perspective. She performs particularly well at getting into the box and providing an additional goal threat, perhaps she can execute some late runs into the box for Germany this summer to add one or two goals to their tally. As well as actual output, Huth stands out in both dribble and offensive duel volume and success rate, indicating that she’s comfortable with frequently taking on opposition defenders and also often succeeds when she opts to do so.
Again, as mentioned in the previous section, she doesn’t have a defensive work rate to write home about although her defensive duel success rate is actually quite good, it’s just the volume that’s low. However, she hopes to make up for that with Germany in the summer via her creativity. Turning our attention to her passing metrics, it’s clear why we’ve selected Huth as our player to watch for Die Nationalelf. She excels in progressing the ball into the penalty area — and tends to do this via a high volume of through balls and smart passes. Smart passes give us a good indication of how often a playmaker breaks lines, and this is a very important quality in any team but will be extremely helpful for Germany this summer as Huth can play the role of supplying the runners ahead of her with quality balls to chase.
There are plenty of intelligent, high-quality runners in Germany’s forward line, they need someone to supply them and feed their runs; Huth is the person to do that and if she’s given the right role this summer, then she has all the quality to star in the Euros for her country.
Tournament Prediction
So, will Huth and the rest of Germany’s quality-packed team under Voss-Tecklenburg bring enough to add another victory to Germany’s illustrious history in this tournament? Only time will truly tell and we certainly feel that Die Nationalelf have a lot to be excited about going into the tournament, but ultimately, we don’t predict they’ll add a ninth European Championship to their trophy cabinet simply due to the quality of competition in this summer’s tournament — we feel there are a few teams that may be better placed to win this one rather than Germany. They do have the quality to advance into the later rounds of the tournament but with that said, their group is a tough one and they shouldn’t look beyond that for the time being.
