Day 11: Popp goes the weasel
Norway scrape through, Morocco make history and Colombia bring the party
Germany 1 - Colombia 2
Colombia came out on top in the most exciting match of the tournament so far as they scored the latest winning goal in a World Cup match since exact timekeeping records began in 2011. Germany would have thought they were leaving with at least a point after Alex Popp had scored a penalty.
Colombia continued to excel at all the things we saw them do well in their opener against South Korea. They harassed Germany on the ball, winning 50:50s and inflicting the kind of physical dominance that Germany are used to dishing out rather than receiving. Mayra Ramirez was once again an incredible outlet on the ball, driving forward and creating opportunities for her teammates. It was Linda Caicedo’s moment of magic that opened the scoring here but Ramirez had been relentless in the minutes leading up to it, and it was she who won the corner which Manuela Vanegas scored the winner from.
Having demolished Morocco in the opener, Germany created little here. An injury to Felicitas Rauch saw Chantal Hagel come in whilst Lena Oberdorf was also fit enough to start in place of Melanie Leupolz. Martina Voss-Tecklenberg seems to have given everyone a free role in attack with Jule Brand once again tucking inside, leaving Svenja Huth with a whole flank to try and marshall at right-back. Clearly Voss-Tecklenberg’s hope is that by utilising players in these slightly different positions, they will create more opportunities but the link up was simply not there with players like Lina Magull and Sara Däbritz being pretty anonymous.
Oberdorf was probably Germany’s brightest spark, both defensively and in attack. Interestingly it seemed like Oberdorf had more license to get forward than Däbritz and she made the most of it, showing off her lesser-spotted passing range (yes she’s good at that like she is everything else). Oberdorf was also the one to win the penalty, in an attempt to not only bail Germany out defensively but also in front of goal. In the end it was not to be and Germany will now need other results to go this way to top this group.
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