The 65th minute would normally be quickly forgotten. The ball had flown into the goal after a free kick by the English footballers. But as the ball moved farther and farther away from the gate of German keeper Merle Frohms, more and more viewers were holding up their camera lights from second to second, beaming at Wembley Stadium.
The cameras were raised in the air, because this intensive test game - the German team won 2-1 (1-0) in the final minute - get a special place in the still-thin book on the history of women's football should. And in just that 65th minute should decide how big this place will be, which record may be celebrated in London. The audience was announced.
Much had been said with the end of the World Cup in the summer over a new boom in women's football - always linked to the question of what will depend on the great enthusiasm from the stadiums in France in the daily lives of international leagues. What will happen when the many TV cameras are gone again.
World Cup enthusiasm, make Wembley full
The English Football Association (FA) had practically set the international with the final whistle of the World Cup: November 9, England against Germany, Wembley Stadium. Wembley is the mother ship of English football, 90,000 places. Get this done? In the past season, on average, no 1,000 fans per game had attended the games of the English club teams.
The FA stirred the drum for weeks. (Read more about the actions in English women's football here.) And then came that evening.
There were many children sitting in the stands, wearing caps from West Ham or Arsenal FC, wearing scarfs from Leicester City or Chelsea FC. Small football fans, for whom it is apparently incidental, whether there are men or women conjure up with the ball. It is important: It is magic. Next to them: mothers, fathers, grandparents, young women and men. The mood was fair, even the German players were welcomed warming up with loud cheers and waving England flags. All this seemed like a great family outing: 77,768 spectators were there. Never before have more people watched a game of English footballers in the stadium. The European record in women's football (80,203 fans, 2016 Olympic final, but also in London) remained.
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Scored the winning goal against England: Klara Bühl
"The push is enormous" and "ten percent more power" you have on such an evening, said the goalkeeper Klara Bühl on this special evening. Captain Alexandra Popp said: "That was bombastic!" The shooter of the 1: 0 hope that there will be such an event in the future in Germany.
The new DFB President Fritz Keller should have registered this - albeit very quiet - demand. Keller was on-site with several other officials of the German Football Association (DFB) and later spoke of discussions that he and his colleagues had had with the FA in the afternoon. It will soon be seen what has arrived from the marketing ideas of FA at the DFB. In April, a home game against Ireland takes place and the venue is not fixed yet; In the past home games in Kassel and Aachen ticket sales had begun weeks after the World Cup. But after the impressions of that evening, Keller decided, you were on the right track.
The axis around Dzsenifer Marozsán
That was synonymous sporty. After the quarter-final stop in France and the simultaneous miss of the Summer Olympics in 2020 England was a real test of endurance - the DFB-Eleven insisted it with their best appearance in 2019. What stood out: It seems an axis to emerge, the young team safety gives. She starts with the only 17-year-old Lena Oberdorf, who has become the head of the central defense and this role fills them with a tremendous gaming intelligence. This axis also includes Giulia Gwinn, who was injured in London, but sure of her place in the race. Also: Sara Däbritz, Lina Magull, Popp, Bühl. And Dzsenifer Marozsán.
Just this week, English player Lucy Bronze said her coach, Phil Neville, told her she was the best player in the world. Bronze's response: "You never saw Marozsán play." What Marozsán showed him this time was like a revelation. The 1: 0 she had initiated fantastically by Lupfer, which prepared 2: 1 in the final minute with a pass through the alley.
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As if she could think of Usain Bolt sprinting: Dzsenifer Marozsan
Sometimes her flashes of inspiration come so suddenly, as if she could think of Usain Bolt sprinting. As the World Cup would have gone well, the Olympique Lyon playmaker would not have broken her toe in the opening game against China? Do you ask yourself this after a gala performance of her as against England as a coach? Martina Voss-Tecklenburg initially nodded vehemently at the question, but then said: "I do not want to think about the past." But she also said, "If she's in top shape, she gives the team tremendous security. We need them."
Also next to the square Dzsenifer Marozsán is needed. Of course, she is not the only driving force of this team, but because of their tricks people go to the football stadium. And perhaps the best player in the world in their own ranks? That has to be marketed somehow.