Germany celebrate Lea Schüller after second Euro goal: “There when we need her to be.” | OneFootball

The other goal scorer during the German women’s national team in Tuesday night’s 2-1 European Championship victory over Denmark suddenly sprung to life late in the crucial group stage fixture. Bayern Munich’s Lea Schüller compensated for a rather quiet performance by keeping her cool in front of goal in the 66th-minute. A bizarre turnover incident proceeding the 2-1 forced Schüller to think and act quickly.

Schüller very nearly snatched a brace four minutes later, heading a quality cross from Giulia Gwinn’s highly-touted replacement Carlotta Wamser just centimeters wide in the 70th-minute. Schüller’s number had already been called by the time of the second chance. She was subbed off directly afterwards.

Virtually the same thing happened in Friday night’s opener, though the 2-0 would against Poland would not prove the match-winner. Schüller scored the team’s second in the 66th minute before being subbed off in the 70th.

“I don’t know what’s going on with Lea,” Bundestrainer Christian Wück joked in an ARD interview afterwards. “I think she senses when we’re thinking about substituting her, so she just scores a quick goal and then goes off.

“That’s what makes a striker special,” Wück continued. “that she’s relatively inconspicuous and then there when we need her to be.”

Wück praised his team for engineering a comeback win from a 0-1 deficit, also noting that there was much work to be done following a performance that featured lots of overly risky passes out of the back, plenty of disorganized lane runs, and finishing errors in front of goal.

The first-half didn’t feature much rhythm from the DFB-Mädels, though this had a lot to do with multiple VAR reviews. Without making excuses, Schüller made reference to this in her post-match comments.

“With so many interruptions, it’s difficult to establish a flow,” Schüller remarked afterwards.

GGFN | Peter Weis