Before miniEURO2012 the German team tried to gain a lot of self-confidence working hard to improve their game. Anyway the players and staff knew it would be Herculean task to reach the quarter finals.
Even if it is Germany and Germany wins quite a lot of matches at European Cups, minifootball is a different story. So the team was not very surprised having a tough game against Slovenia. Slovenia led 1-0 and 2-1 before Germany hit back and in the last minute a Slovenian defender headed the ball in his own net.
Against hosts Moldova on Saturday it was even harder to play. The home team, pushed forward by more than 500 supporters, finally managed to score and defended very well, so the gamed ended 1-0.
So it was all or nothing against Slovakia. Germany had to win, so the players started with a massive offense and scored after seconds for the first time. After eight minutes the scoreboard said 4-1 and the winner seemed to be found.
But the Slovaks were not intimidated and fought back. At halftime, they found their way back into the game and were only down with one goal. They even managed to score twice in the second half and won 5-4 in maybe the best match in the tournament. ″In minifootball everything is possible,″ says DKFV President Christoph Köchy. ″It′s not like it is on the big field. A high deficit can be made up within a few minutes.″
Even if the German team did not make it to the quarter finals Coach Muller was very happy with his players: ″Of course you want to be champion and win every game. But we knew it would be difficult against the strong Eastern European countries. The internal goal was therefore to represent our country well, to show beautiful football and to win at least one game. We have done that as you can see on some videos where our players celebrated the after the final as if they had won.″
Everybody went home with the feeling that this was the beginning of something huge. Next year the German team will be much stronger, believes president Koechy and adds a famous quote from Terminator: ″We will be back!″