Germany claim third place

Germany claimed third place in the UEFA European Women's Under-17 Championship with a comfortable victory against the Netherlands in Nyon.

Goals from Lena Petermann, Melanie Leupolz and Silvana Chojnowski ensured that Germany, winners of the two previous editions, will join Spain and the Republic of Ireland as Europe's representatives in September's FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago. The Netherlands had never lost a game in this competition before coming to Switzerland but were twice beaten 3-0 here.

Having suffered their maiden defeat at this level in Tuesday's 1-0 semi-final to the Republic of Ireland, Germany dominated the first half. Sarah Romert shot over from close range after four minutes and Petermann hit a left-foot shot just wide. Petermann came close again soon after but Melissa van der Wiel in the Netherlands goal was quickly off her line to smother her effort. But she would not be denied a third time, slotting home from the edge of the penalty area after 23 minutes.

Germany again threatened first after half-time, with Van der Wiel forced into a fine save from Jennifer Cramer's powerful free-kick. Then, just four minutes after replacing the injured Isabella Schmid, Leupolz picked up possession 30 metres from goal, created space for herself and arrowed a stunning shot into the top right corner. Chojnowski sealed the win with an assured close-range finish ten minutes from time.

Ralf Peter, Germany coach
We are very satisfied with qualifying for Trinidad and Tobago. We know we played very badly in the first match and we were very disappointed. In this match I was very happy with my team. We played well right from the start and this is the kind of performance I want to see from this team; this is the type of performance that I want to see in Trinidad and Tobago.

It is important we learn to play a good first match because this is a problem for this team. In the first qualifying round we played very badly in the first match against Iceland but then in the second and third matches we played very well. It was the same story in the second qualifying round where we started with a very bad performance against Austria and followed that with a very, very good match against Norway which we won 4-0. And now in this final round it was the same: first match bad, second match good. We must improve this.