The Nati's 7-1 defeat against the U15 juniors of FC Lucerne is making waves. Coach Pia Sundhage ignores all the negative comments and explains why she likes to play against boys.
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- On Tuesday, the 1:7 defeat of our women's national team in a test match against the U15 juniors of FC Luzern last week becomes public.
- The result goes viral across Europe. Astonishment, malice, ridicule. National team coach Pia Sundhage takes it in her stride. She says: "The result doesn't really matter. You have to ignore the negative comments."
- The Swede explains why she has always organized tests for her women's teams against juniors or men's teams. She says: "It allows us to simulate situations for serious matches at international level that challenge us."
The 7-1 defeat of the women's national team in the test against the U15 juniors of FC Luzern made headlines across Europe and caused a furor on social media. Criticism here, astonishment there, malice there.
No reason for national team coach Pia Sundhage to be annoyed. The Swede says coolly: "The result doesn't really matter. You have to ignore the negative comments."
Sundhage: "We lost 0:9 with Sweden before the Olympics"
She has always had her teams play against boys or men, she says. The difficulty is finding the right age for the boys. And why does she like to play against boys? Sundhage: "We have an eleven versus eleven game, which we can analyze in detail afterwards. The juniors are faster, they jump higher, so they can put us under pressure. This allows us to simulate situations for serious matches at international level that challenge us."
She doesn't look at results. Sundhage: "Before the 2016 Olympics, we played with Sweden against the men - and lost 0:9. But we saw situations that we could learn a lot from."
Riesen: "The guys all felt like they were 1.80 meters tall"
Nadine Riesen says that the big waves caused by their 1:7 defeat didn't really concern her. The winger explains: "It felt like the boys were already 1.80 meters tall and faster. We tried out a lot, rotated a lot, which was really good for us. We wanted to implement what was important to us, so it was good that we did this test. Of course we always want to win, but that was secondary here."
