Meinert still striking gold

Maren Meinert won most of what there is to win as a Germany player including the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup and three UEFA European Women's Championship titles. The former forward is now coaching her youth national team, and tonight could gain victory in the UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship.

Pressure on
Meinert took charge just before the 2005 finals, and in Hungary reached the last four. Having defeated their semi-final foes from that year, Russia, 4-0 on Wednesday they have now gone one better and by beating France, Germany would become European women's youth champions for the fourth time. However, although Meinert has already achieved her minimum goal for the tournament in Switzerland, she knows from the experience of losing to Norway in the 1995 World Cup final that it will be hard for the defeated team at the Neufeld stadium.

Bad memories
"If you are in the final, it is bad to lose it," she told uefa.com. "Having lost in a World Cup final; at that moment it was not so bad but in the weeks after the final you just wished you could have had a better game. But we are just trying to do our best and we are already the second best team in Europe, for that young team that was all I asked for before the tournament."

Goals for substitutes
The 32-year-old can take plenty of personal credit for Germany's run; at half-time with the semi-final standing at 0-0 she made a double substitution and both new arrivals, Ann-Christin Angel and Monique Kerschowski, scored within five minutes, not the first time a switch at the break has paid dividends for Meinert. And it also proves to the players on the bench that their time could come. "I always tell my substitutes that you never know how the day will end," she said. "Anything can happen. If you in a tournament, and are one of the 18 players the day can't end when you sit on the bench, because then you don't deserve to be in the team."

Second-half surges
Ten of Germany's eleven goals in these finals have indeed come in the second half. There are two reasons," Meinert said. "The first thing is the team always believes - even if they have a bad first half. And we have players we can bring in who can change our game and make it better, we have a good second half.
The team is growing and if we get into difficult situations we can solve them right now and that's good."

Playing experience
No coach in these finals had the playing record of Meinert - few do - but she does not think that gives her the edge as a trainer. "I have only been a coach for two years, I have been learning so much," she said. "So I don't think compared to the other I have advantages. It is always a good thing if you been to big finals, but if you are not a good player you can be a good coach. I just try to give things to my players that I had in my career and to explain things in the best way I can do."