Warning to USWNT: World Cup flops Germany must be taken seriously at the Olympics - just ask Australia

It’s hard to overstate just how big a failure last year’s World Cup was for Germany. Runners-up at the European Championship in 2022, this was a team everyone was talking about and one that had a kind group-stage draw. It sat 15 FIFA world ranking places higher than South Korea, 23 above Colombia and 70 above Morocco.

However, after a 6-0 thrashing of the latter, Germany was stunned by a Linda Caicedo-inspired Colombia in Sydney and then thwarted by a South Korea side that knew any chance of qualification was a long shot. The mixture of sheer shock and uncontrollable tears on the faces of the Germany players after full-time, after their exit was confirmed, said it all.

Voss-Tecklenburg came in for significant criticism after this failure. She had to cope with some injuries, yes, but the solutions she opted for were questionable and did not work. Natural full-backs were left on the bench as the coach deployed experienced winger Svenja Huth at right-back and midfielder Chantal Hagel at left-back - and it was these players that Bell's Korean side targeted in the 1-1 draw. “They are not full-backs,” he stated plainly in his post-match press conference. “They are not learnt full-backs and don’t have the schooling of a full-back. We wanted to target those areas and it worked.”

This wasn't all Voss-Tecklenburg was slated for. A lack of creativity on the pitch made the limited use of players like Sydney Lohmann, Lina Magull and Laura Freigang baffling, while it was also questioned as to why the coach didn’t opt for a change of shape to cover for some of these issues.

Complicating matters further was that Voss-Tecklenburg only signed a new contract shortly before the World Cup, to take her through to the end of Euro 2025. Would the federation keep faith in her, factoring in the run to the Euro 2022 final? Or was this too much to come back from?

In the end, a debrief was delayed because the 56-year-old fell ill and could not lead the team in the next international window. There was then a rather bizarre sequence of events in October where she appeared as a speaker at the Bavarian Dentists’ Day, while on what the German Football Association (DFB) confirmed as recovery leave. The DFB said a meeting would take place once her time off was over.

In the end, the two parties were able to come together in early November, some three months after the World Cup exit, and decided on the separation. “Following an in-depth analysis of the women's national team's disappointing performance at the last World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, it was agreed that the team needed a fresh start in terms of sporting leadership,” the DFB said.

President Bernd Neuendorf added: “During this time, important steps were taken in the area of women's soccer. The national team's appearance in the final of the 2022 European Championship in England gave women's and girls' soccer an enormous boost. This success is and remains associated with Martina Voss-Tecklenburg.”

It wasn’t a surprise that the two didn’t continue, but the delay to such a decision wasn’t ideal for a Germany team in the middle of trying to qualify for an Olympic Games. If successful in that quest, as it was, it wasn’t far away from the actual tournament, either.

Hrubesch, who has occupied several different coaching roles with the national team, was trusted to take over from Voss-Tecklenburg on a temporary basis and that has since developed into an 11-month stint, as it wasn’t until March that the DFB announced that Christian Wuck will be the next permanent coach. Given this was just four months before the Olympics, it made sense for Hrubesch to remain in charge and for Wuck to take the reins after the tournament. However, once again, such a situation wasn’t ideal.

Unsurprisingly, Germany has blown hot and cold under a coach that hasn’t quite known how long he will be in charge. It wasn’t until March that Hrubesch had clarity on how far he could look ahead with the team and how much forward-planning could be done.

He deserves credit, then, for guiding Germany through an unbeaten UEFA Women's Nations League group stage campaign, to qualification for the tournament's finals and for overseeing a win against the Netherlands that booked a ticket to Paris 2024.

Despite following that success with six wins from seven games, things have not always looked convincing. Germany was 2-0 down after just 17 minutes in its first Euro 2025 qualifier, away at Austria, before completing an almighty comeback to win. In a double-header with Poland this summer, the team that has never been to a major tournament took an early lead in both games, with Germany not going ahead in either win until the latter stages of the second half.

Then there was the 3-0 thrashing in Reykjavik that left many doubting Germany's ability to compete for an Olympic gold medal. “The way we played just wasn’t good,” Hrubesch said afterwards. “We deserved to lose. We handed them all three goals on a plate.”

And yet, just 13 days later, everyone was talking about a 3-0 win in favor of the Germans. Australia arrived at the Olympics as one of the front-runners for gold, owing to fourth-placed finishes at last year’s World Cup and Tokyo 2020, but the Matildas were picked apart by a ruthless opponent in Marseille.

Hrubesch’s side was aggressive, it dominated one-v-one duels and used these strengths to take advantage of set pieces, from which the first two goals came. In this sense, it was what you would expect from a classic Germany team – and that is a little of what Hrubesch, a member of the men’s side that won the Euros in 1980 and reached the 1982 World Cup final, brings to the table.

“He’s a coach that is very ‘basics’-orientated, with the mentality side but also the style of football in general,” Felicitas Rauch, among the reserves for this tournament, told She Kicks magazine ahead of the Games. “He just wants to be like, ‘Don’t think too much, just go and take risks and be brave. You play football to score’, and, ‘Don’t be afraid of conceding goals’. Of course, he pays attention to tactics, because he has the staff members around to help as well, but he teaches football through his heart, kind of.

“I think this is what gives us a big opportunity for a tournament like the Olympics, because it’s six games, you need to win, and I think you need to play with your heart. Sometimes, of course, you also need to play with your head, but in those types of games, you really need a lot of passion and desire and I feel like he brings that spark in our team.”

At times, Hrubesch has come in for criticism for his tactics – but there were few flaws to point to in Thursday’s win over Australia. In a 4-4-2 formation, he set his team up for success with selection decisions that simply made sense.

An out-of-form goalkeeper, in Frohms, was replaced by an in-form one, in Ann-Katrin Berger. With holding midfielder Oberdorf ruled out through injury, versatile forward Alex Popp was dropped into there, using her experience and physical presence to dominate. The frontline didn’t lack a focal point in her absence either, as Schuller led the way with another goal-scoring performance.

Meanwhile, the right-hand side flourished, Jule Brand given the freedom to tear Australia apart while supported by full-back Gwinn, and the defense ensured the Matildas rarely put anything together on the attack. “When we show our mentality on the pitch, it gives us a very, very good chance,” Popp told FIFA afterwards. “We played very well. We were aggressive one-v-one, which was important. If we continue being there [mentally] and ready from the first second on the pitch, then anything is possible.”

Perhaps Germany has benefited from going under the radar, its own flaws coming amid the hype around Spain, the world champion which is favorite to win gold in Paris, and the attention on storylines such as Emma Hayes’ first tournament in charge of the U.S. However, it is unlikely to be overlooked from here on out. It has experience, it has quality and it is being led by a coach who guided the men’s team to a silver medal in 2016, and thus knows what it takes to go far at this uniquely challenging tournament.

This is, it must be noted, after just one game. There are plenty more to go before prizes are dished out. Those involved in Germany’s doomed World Cup campaign last summer will be keen to stress that in particular, as everyone was talking this team up after it kicked off with a 6-0 thrashing of Morocco in Melbourne.

Maintaining this momentum against the USWNT on Sunday will be huge for Hrubesch’s side and it will certainly fancy its chances. The U.S. was a convincing winner when it faced Zambia in round one, though it was expected to be. Hayes’ team was not tested much by the Copper Queens either, who were reduced to 10 players in the first half, so could be a little undercooked ahead of a big challenge. The intensity needed for this game will be completely different. It will need to be at it from the very first whistle or it will be left in Germany’s destructive path in as ruthless a manner as Australia was.

“The opponents will definitely not be looking forward to playing us,” Hrubesch declared before the Olympics began, in an interview with FIFA. If any other team at this tournament didn’t feel that way about Germany before Thursday, it surely does now.