National team
Giulia Gwinn DFB captain against Austria
Giulia Gwinn will lead the DFB team as captain against Austria. photo
© Federico Gambarini/dpa
Giulia Gwinn (24) as captain, Lena Oberdorf (22) as her deputy: Horst Hrubesch makes decisions for the DFB women. These also point to the future.
Popp’s previous deputy, Svenja Huth, recently resigned from the national team. Despite suffering two cruciate ligament tears in recent years, Gwinn has already played 41 international matches and is one of the most important regulars as a right-back. The deputy captain is now the future Munich player Lena Oberdorf (Wolfsburg), who at 22 years old plays a key role in the DFB women.
Gwinn made her fundamental demands for a leadership role clear in an interview with the Bayern club magazine last week: “I want to take responsibility and embody that,” she said. “If you duck away, you don’t achieve anything.” After the defeat in the Nations League semi-finals in France, she publicly spoke of “scaredy football”. “I think it’s part of it to put your finger in the wound,” she said later.
Interim national coach Horst Hrubesch recently said on the question of who will wear the armband in Linz: “Normally, I have always chosen the captain. I will talk to the girls and then decide who will be in the team Playing as captain.”
The appreciation for Gwinn and Oberdorf also represents the upcoming upheaval in the national team. For Popp, who celebrates her 33rd birthday on Saturday, it is unclear whether she will continue her DFB career beyond the Olympic Games in Paris.