Giulia Gwinn will lead the German women's national team onto the field as captain for the first time on Friday (April 5th, 8:30 p.m.) against Austria. The 24-year-old defender from FC Bayern Munich takes over the position in place of the injured Alexandra Popp.
When the DFB team faces their first European Championship qualifying duel against their neighbors from Austria, Giulia Gwinn will wear the captain's armband for the national team for the first time. A DFB spokeswoman announced this on Thursday morning. Alexandra Popp normally holds the office. But since the Wolfsburg striker is currently out due to knee problems and her previous representative and teammate Svenja Huth recently announced her resignation from the national team, it was up to interim coach Horst Hrubesch to appoint a representative.
With her total of 41 appearances (seven goals) for Germany since her debut in 2017, Gwinn has established herself as one of the main players in the team and is a regular player in the right-back position. The 24-year-old is considered one of the faces of the DFB team and only recently made it clear in an interview that she wanted to take on more responsibility in the future, as she has already demonstrated as a successful penalty taker.
Since there is already speculation that Popp, at almost 33 years old, could retire from the national team after the Olympic tournament, a successor has probably already been found in Gwinn, which could be symbolic of the expected upheaval in the DFB team. In addition to the Bayern defender, Lena Oberdorf, who will join the reigning German champions in the summer, was also among the candidates. The Wolfsburg native has now been appointed as deputy captain for the games against Austria and Iceland.
The DFB team will play its first qualifying game for the 2025 European Championships in Linz against Austria on Friday evening (8:30 p.m.), before facing Iceland four days later in Aachen (6:10 p.m.). The fourth group opponent is the Polish national team.
