On Thursday, the national team will face a final endurance test against the Czech Republic before the European Championship kicks off in a week's time. Nati coach Pia Sundhage also talks about the injured players Lia Wälti and Luana Bühler on the day before the main rehearsal.
Pia Sundhage about ...
... the test against the Czech Republic on Thursday: "We're glad that we can test again so shortly before the start of the European Championship. We had good training sessions and hope that we'll get some answers tomorrow. The result is very important. The best thing would be if we could score a few goals. We've been working hard on that recently. We want to give a lot of players playing time and will make a few changes at half-time."
... the injured Lia Wälti and Luana Bühler: "Luana can train fully, she's making great progress and will be ready on July 2. Lia knows her body and has her own plan. She was able to train today, but she won't play 90 minutes tomorrow. But when she plays, she can make the difference. I'm happy that she's where she is now. I really hope she'll be ready next Wednesday against Norway."
... the goalie question: "You'll see who will be in goal tomorrow. I have no regrets about the way we handled it. We've always made the decisions with the goalkeeping coaches. It's always about performance. You can't look at what happened three months ago. So much has happened in the meantime. I talk to the goalie coaches a lot about the goalkeepers and I trust them a lot."
... the 1:7 defeat in the test against FC Luzern U15: "My teams have always played against boys or even men. The reason why we do that is because we have a game that we can analyze in detail. The juniors are faster, so you can simulate situations for serious matches at international level. Before the 2016 Olympics, we played with Sweden against the men - and lost 0:9. But we saw situations that taught us a lot. The result doesn't really matter. You have to ignore the negative comments."
