Svenja Huth has every reason to be happy before the World Cup: her wife is expecting their first child together. But Germany makes it difficult for the two. The questions about her position are just as exhausting for the all-rounder of the DFB-Elf. For tactical reasons, Huth wants to reveal as little as possible.
Not everything always goes according to plan with the DFB team, but also for good reasons. The attention for the soccer players is present even in their secluded and isolated hotel complex, still away from the small town of Wyong. Actually, she wanted to sit on the terrace with Felicitas Rauch and learn something for her studies, but nothing came of it, says Vice-Captain Svenja Huth: They became the focus of a group of pensioners who were out and about on the neighboring golf course. “We got talking straight away and took a picture for their Facebook page. They all kept their fingers crossed for us and said it would be great if Germany and Australia played each other at some point.”
So the mood is right in the country of the co-hosts of this football World Cup, it is also right in the German delegation, who had several highlights yesterday evening. First the players were able to watch kangaroos up close and even feed them, then the long-awaited opening games were shown on TV at Nachos. “It was wonderful, beautiful. The ceremony of both was a feeling where you realize, let’s get started,” says goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger. “Now the anticipation is much, much greater. That was too long for me before.”
The DFB team arrived in Australia nine days ago and since then the players have been preparing for their first World Cup game against Morocco, mostly in secret (July 24th, 10.30am/ZDF and ntv.de live ticker) before. Only 15 minutes of each training session are public, after which all media representatives are escorted out. Not enough to see to really know what is being trained, what tactics are being prepared. Whether the Germans will defend with a back four or three. And whether Huth will play in her usual position on the right wing or as a right-back, as in the botched friendly against Zambia (2-3). The journalists had a lot to talk about, but Huth wanted to reveal as little as possible at the press conference. When asked the third time, a slightly annoyed “man” slips out of her mouth, which causes laughter.
In attack or as a right-back?
Huth’s defensive play against Zambia came as a surprise to the public. “It didn’t come as a surprise to me because we were in exchange. Since the question was asked whether I could imagine that,” she explains in retrospect. “I’m not completely unfamiliar with the position because I played it in Frankfurt.” However, she switched from 1. FFC Frankfurt to Turbine Potsdam in 2015, and the now 32-year-old has been playing for VfL Wolfsburg since 2019. “I’ll throw everything in, give everything to help the team. It was clear to me that I’d play where the coach put me up,” she tries to use a phrase.
Huth prefers to emphasize the positive rather than quarrel with her potential new role. When it comes to building up the game, she knows what the people in front want and it’s also about staying variable. “This variability of players, but also of the positioning, drives many opponents to despair and we have to get there. If we are static in the positions, it becomes easy to defend ourselves. We always have to keep that in mind.”
Huth did a solid job against Zambia, making sure that national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg can compensate for the imbalance in the squad between defensive and offensive. Because the alternatives on the defender positions are significantly fewer than in attack. On the flank, their traditional position, “a Nici Anyomi, a Jule Brand, a Sydney Lohmann” could play, according to Huth himself. On the defensive, on the other hand, there is a gap on the right after the failure of Giulia Gwinn, who is still being rested after her second cruciate ligament tear with a view to the future. The EM formation with the player who made it into the tournament’s all-star team on the right back has broken up. As an alternative, Frankfurt’s Sophia Kleinherne is a right-back in the squad who has match practice in this position. But under Voss-Tecklenburg, the 23-year-old has not yet been part of the permanent staff.
Become a mother with a world title?
And so Huth could actually have this unusual role in Australia. She tries as hard as possible to neither confirm nor deny it. What she speaks more openly about, however, is her private life. Last year, as a new wife, she traveled to England for the European Championships, now her first child is due in September. Your wife Laura is pregnant. In the documentary “Born for this” (ZDF Mediathek) the two talk about the way there, which was not easy. Because it is not possible in Germany for both partners to be involved in the birth of the child, the Huths traveled abroad to do so. “It’s a big project that we’re tackling. We decided on a method that we could only have carried out in Spain, in Valencia,” says Laura Huth. For this purpose, Svenja Huth’s egg cells were removed using the so-called ROPA method, fertilized and finally Laura was inserted.
After the birth of her son, she is a mother – just not according to German law. Of course, this also applies to their feelings, thanks to their egg cells also genetically. In Spain, the two wives would be immediately recognized as mothers. But Germany makes it difficult for the two. The bureaucratic hurdles require the international to adopt her child. “We’re married, we can’t really have more children. One would wish for more equality,” says Laura Huth. Svenja Huth adds that it is humiliating that as a mother she has to take a drug test and present an extended certificate of good conduct in order to adopt her own child. But all the trouble is worth it: “We’re already noticing kicks and movements from our little son. He fills us both with a lot of luck,” says Svenja Huth.
Her wife then also openly reveals a deal between the two that makes Svenja Huth laugh: “The plan is that Svenja will also get pregnant after her career. She can’t really imagine that yet.” In any case, for the experienced DFB player, the focus is now on the World Cup. Her wife said goodbye to her with the sentence “See you in six weeks”, so she hopes to make it to the final, to the world title. That would be something: to become a mother for the first time as a newly crowned world champion.