Women’s European Championship 2022
“Better than friends!”: DFB soccer players fool around on TikTok – and the fans are thrilled
DFB players celebrate a goal in the opening match of the European Championship against Denmark
© Matteo Ciambelli / Picture Alliance
The DFB women got off to a perfect start in the European Championship. A look at the TikTok accounts shows how good the atmosphere in the team is – that could also play a role in sport.
The start of a major tournament is often decisive in football – and in the case of the German women’s national football team it was more than successful. The DFB team won their first group game at the European Championships in England 4-0 against Denmark and put in an extremely strong performance. So it’s no wonder that the atmosphere in the team is good. The soccer players show how well they do on their TikTok accounts.
From their base camp in west London, the players send small video snippets home and around the world via the app. They fool around in the pool, film themselves in the hotel and on the plane or face small challenges. A video in which the players have to choose between two options helps them get to know the DFB women better.
The fans obviously like the content: the videos contain almost exclusively positive comments. A user writes: “German national team as a sitcom would be better than friends”, many call the video “likeable” and were already looking forward to the EM appearances before the game against Denmark.
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Laura Freigang in particular (38,000 followers) lets her creativity run free on TikTok. The 24-year-old attacker regularly posts videos from the DFB district. One of them has already been viewed 1.3 million times: In it she outed some of her teammates with their “weaknesses”. Kathrin Hendrich, for example, is “always hungry” and Sara Däbritz, 30, is simply “old”. With all the concentration on the sporting challenges, there seems to be room for teasing among the DFB women.
“We all got along well before, but now you really have the feeling that we’re a real team and that we treat each other well,” says Lina Magull, goal scorer in the 1-0 win over Denmark, describing the team spirit. This can not only be seen in the social networks, but also and above all on the pitch: After the opening win against Denmark, national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg emphasized the “team performance” of her players.
The conditions for a successful tournament seem to be right for record European champions Germany. Not only because of the sporting exclamation point in the first group game, but also because of the good teamwork – the men showed how important that can be for success, among other things, at their World Cup title in Brazil in 2014. For the DFB women, the big endurance test is on Tuesday: Then, with Spain, one of the big tournament favorites, the opponent.
Sources: UEFA Women’s Euro on TikTok / Laura Freigang on TikTok / ZDF