By Bart Biesemans
WYONG, Australia (Reuters) – Sara Daebritz has won her fair share of titles with Germany and in club football but the midfielder believes it is getting harder to win major prizes as the depth of the women’s game increases and the quality improves.
The 28-year-old, who won a Euros and an Olympics with her country and German and French league titles with Bayern Munich and Paris St Germain respectively, is in Australia looking to add to her collection of medals at the Women’s World Cup.
Germany opened their campaign with a 6-0 thrashing of Morocco but it has not escaped Daebritz’s attention that other contenders have struggled against lowlier rivals.
“It is a really positive development,” she told reporters at the team base on Friday.
“I think it’s great to watch women’s football and you can really see a lot of exciting games, balanced games at this World Cup.
“It’s noticeable that even the supposedly small nations have really caught up and are physically present, but are also really good at defending.
“That’s why it’s simply outstanding that it’s developed in such a way that you meet such a world championship where you just don’t know who’s going to win the game. It makes football more exciting.”
The rise in quality of the women’s game will, of course, make it tougher for Germany to win a third world title but Daebritz has confidence her team has what it takes.
“I do think it’s getting more difficult to win titles now because the favourites and the level at such a tournament have developed upwards,” she added.
“It doesn’t make it any easier, but I think that first of all, we have an outstanding squad in terms of quality, an outstanding team, and above all, this spirit.”
Next up for Germany in Sydney on Sunday are 25th-ranked Colombia, who impressed in their Group H opener with a 2-0 win over South Korea.
“Against Colombia, transition will play an important role, whether it is forward or backward,” Daebritz said.
“When we had the ball (against Morocco), you could see that we had a phase where we were perhaps imprecise, where we had a few unnecessary ball losses, and that can be dangerous against(Colombia), when they start their counter-attack at speed.”
(Reporting by Bart Biesemans, writing by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Christian Radnedge)
