Straight
Alexandra Popp celebrates 2-1 against France. ADRIAN DENNIS (AFP)
England-Germany at Wembley, Beth Mead against Alexandra Popp, both with six goals in the European Championship.
A good part of the final next Sunday (6:00 p.m., La 1) will be cooked there.
The locals dispatched Sweden unceremoniously, but the Germans needed their best cannon, irrepressible for France with two lifelong area shots.
One down with his foot and at the first touch, the other up when the fever was rising the most in his.
But for that they are liquidators like her, or like Mead, to ruin the great improvement of the finery after the break.
It was useless for them to leave the football desert in which they moved during the first half;
they ended up struck down by Popp's weapon of mass destruction.
GERGermany
two
Merle Frohms, Giulia Gwinn, Felicitas Rauch, Marina Hegering, Kathrin Hendrich, Lena Oberdorf, Sara Däbritz, Lina Magull, Jule Brand, Svenja Huth, and Alexandra Popp
FRA France
1
Pauline Peyraud-Magnin, Griedge Mbock Bathy, Sakina Karchaoui, Wendie Renard, Ève Périsset, Sandie Toletti, Charlotte Bilbault, Grace Geyoro, Kadidiatou Diani, Delphine Cascarino, and Melvine Malard
Goals
1-0 min.
39: Alexandra Popp.
1-1 min.
43: Merle Frohms (pp).
2-1 min.
75: Alexandra Popp.
Yellow cards Sandie Toletti (min. 20), Selma Bacha (min. 55), Giulia Gwinn (min. 73) and Lena Oberdorf (min. 93)
Until the break, the semifinal was an anthology of nothing, or almost nothing, which, yes, came to the break with two goals.
Soccer stuff.
The first two seconds were a premonition of what was going to happen during a long stretch.
He kicked off France's center and sent the ball down the baseline.
If it was a rehearsed move, it didn't feel like it.
The fact is that that action opened a first half that barely had chicha, governed by fear and caution, especially from the French team.
Germany don't play the piano when they have the ball and France didn't want to know much about attacking.
It was their first semi-final in a major tournament and they made no secret of their starting plan: above all, don't make a mistake, even if that meant getting just close enough to the opposite area.
So for many minutes the duel moved in a desert from which it only came out due to three spasms that, coincidentally, ended in two goals and one almost.
He almost came for a very violent left foot from Popp, of course, that slipped into the middle of an endless barrier and ended up clearing Peyraud-Magnin's corner wonderfully.
The shock returned to nothing, until the five minutes before the break.
Two blows and two goals.
In the 40th, the German Huth put in a cross and Popp circumvented Périsset's marking to stamp the ball into the nets.
Who else to take advantage of yawning.
Wendie Renard, the French captain, immediately summoned her team to a conclave while the rival celebrated the goal.
Whatever he said, relief found him instantly.
After some pressure from above, the ball fell to Diani, she turned on the front and released a terminal whiplash.
He first hit the post and the bounce off Frohms's back drove him inside.
The official statistics charged the goalkeeper so much.
The first that Germany fit in the Euro.
The tie at the bell did not confuse the French coach, who at the beginning of the second half gave flight to the promising Bacha and then to Matéo.
And the effects were almost optimal.
A shot from the first cleared it for a corner with Hendrich's face.
From that corner kick came a Renard pole shot that Frohms kicked away with his feet, as did another Diani shot.
At last France really appeared in Milton Keynes.
However, Germany, eight times champions, experts in survival manuals, grabbed the final when less signals were emitted.
Popp was there to strike down the galas and meet in a duel with Beth Mead in the best possible scenario.
All eyes at Wembley will be on them.
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