Marozsan still a doubt for Germany's last-16 game

Dzsenifer Marozsan has missed Germany's last two Women's World Cup games and she remains a doubt, says coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg.

Published : Jun 18, 2019 09:30 IST

Dzsenifer Marozsan of Germany uses a black roll during a training prior the match against South Africa.
Dzsenifer Marozsan of Germany uses a black roll during a training prior the match against South Africa.
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Dzsenifer Marozsan of Germany uses a black roll during a training prior the match against South Africa.

Martina Voss-Tecklenburg is unsure whether Germany's star player Dzsenifer Marozsan will be ready to play in the Women's World Cup round of 16.

A toe injury kept Marozsan on the sidelines as Germany finished top of Group B thanks to its 4-0 defeat of South Africa on Monday.

Germany do not know its last-16 opponents yet, although the match will be played in Grenoble on Saturday, and Voss-Tecklenburg is hoping Marozsan will recover in time.

"Unfortunately I'm not able to say if she's going to play in the round of 16, we have to look on a daily basis," Voss-Tecklenburg told a post-match news conference. "There are small advances but we can't confirm if she will be back. But we still have a few days."

Germany has demonstrated its status among the tournament favourites by winning all three of its group games without conceding a goal.

First-half strikes from Melanie Leupolz, Sara Daebritz and Alexandra Popp set up a 4-0 defeat of Banyana Banyana, with Lina Magull adding a fourth after the break, but Voss-Tecklenburg still feels there is more to come.

"A coach is never 100 per cent satisfied and there were still moments within the match where we can improve, trying to go for the more difficult solution and we can still work on this," she said.

"If someone had told me we would go to the last 16 with nine points I wouldn't have believed it. We worked very hard to achieve this goal and I think we were rewarded for our work on the pitch."

South Africa exit its first Women's World Cup without any points, scoring a single goal, and coach Desiree Ellis rued some costly moments.

"We knew it was a difficult group but we felt if we played at our best we could get positive results," Ellis told reporters. "Starting with Spain we didn't get the result I thought we deserved, we played really well and could have gone 2-0 or 3-0 up before they scored.

"Then we conceded two penalties and conceding a penalty and going down to 10 was always going to be difficult. We tried to push up and try to equalise but got caught again. In the China game I felt we had a chance but didn't play as well as we could, they scored early and we didn't create many opportunities.

"This [Germany] game became a final and we had to make sure we got the result we wanted, the rest wasn't up to us. But we started poorly, then conceded poorly from a set piece as well and we were always on the back foot. We panicked under pressure and played small instead of big.

"Overall we can be happy with the performances, but not the results."

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