Originally appearing on the ‘Deustcher Fußball-Bund’ Website, this interview with the Womn’s German Football Team Head Coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg has been translated from German into English.
How are you?
I am doing well so far, because luckily nobody in my immediate environment is ill. We stick together as family and friends. And yet it is noticeable that you become more thoughtful. You have so many question marks in your head – for all areas of life that move you. For example, my dad is 80 years old today. The day was planned differently, but the family celebration is only postponed, and we all press it firmly from a distance.
How do you deal specifically with this difficult situation?
You try to distract yourself with certain tasks. We still go about our daily work, even if it is limited, and we are also in contact with the people who are important to us. The subject of corona virus is of course very dominant, so you also have to create space in which you can deal with other things. Be it reading a good book or getting on a bike to simply enjoy nature. So that you stay positive despite the difficult times.
How is the contact and exchange with the national team currently?
As with many others, we currently only communicate via telephone and video conferencing. We have a duty of care towards our players, we take care of them, actively ask about them and have pushed some things.
What specifically?
For example, we are doing an action under the heading #stayathome that affects all players from the U15 juniors to the women’s national team. Divided into different groups, we use our SAP team app to convey training content and programs appropriate to the age group. The content was developed by our trainers under the leadership of Patrik Grolimund, the assistant trainer with a focus on athletics for the women’s national team.
The focus is different here, of course the content of senior international players is different than the U 15. Especially since our senior players have received detailed training plans from their clubs. But to bring variety and other ideas into everyday training and to give them the feeling that we are there for them, these measures are totally important. Especially in the U area because there are many heterogeneous approaches.
A lot of support from our side is needed. We have provided specific training aids here that all revolve around the question: What can you do to keep yourself reasonably fit? Because the big challenge will be that our players will not immediately get the overload if they ever return to everyday training. Then it will also be about the correct load control. We face major challenges because we have not yet had any experience with this situation. It’s a bit like bringing injured players back onto the pitch who weren’t injured at all.
Read the rest of the interview (in German) here: https://www.dfb.de/news/detail/voss-tecklenburg-der-fussball-muss-solidarisch-zusammenstehen-214353/
