World ranking

1

UEFA Champs Records

Winners 1989, 1991, 1995, 1997, 2001; SF 1993.

Euro 2005 qualification

Group 4 winners.

Colours

White shirts with black detail, black shorts.

Coach

Tina Theune-Meyer.

Key players

Birgit Prinz (striker), Renate Lingor (midfielder), Silke Rottenberg (goalkeeper).

Website 

www.dfb.de


The Germans have been the dominant force in Europe for over a decade, though that was not always the case. Having formed their national women’s team in 1982 they failed to win a single group match in the first European Championship, whose 1984 final saw England beaten by Sweden in a penalty shoot-out.

But lessons were quickly learned, as their subsequent successes unequivocally prove. Most recently, and as if to underline their impeccable credentials as World and European champions, they ended the qualification stages for Euro 2005 with a 100 per cent record and having hit no fewer than 50 goals in their eight group matches.

Much of the credit for Germany’s phenomenal record must go to Head Coach Tina Theune-Meyer, who like Hope Powell in England is her country’s first female in charge of the national women’s team.

The 51 year-old coach, who spent 10 years as Assistant to former boss Gero Bisanz before taking control herself in 1996, has moulded a succession of excellent individual players into an evolving team structure that that has been the basis of Germany’s continuing success.

Striker Birgit Prinz, 2003’s World Player of the Year in the women’s game, has taken most of the plaudits in recent years for not only her goalscoring but also her tremendous contribution to the team ethic.

But the Germans have top players all over the pitch, from Silke Rottenberg – arguably the world’s best female goalkeeper – to Prinz herself up front. So although much of the Euro 2005 focus will be on Prinz, opponents will take their attention off the 27 year-old striker’s colleagues at their peril.

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