Stability has been in short supply in Germany’s women’s national team recently. Through the coaching confusion, World Cup post-mortems and international retirements of stalwarts Svenja Huth and Melanie Leupolz, Alexandra Popp has been one of very few constants.
Although the Wolfsburg striker, 33, will miss Friday’s Euro 2025 qualifier against Iceland due to a minor foot ailment, she is poised to captain a new-look Germany squad hoping to recapture Olympic gold in Paris as the only survivor in the 16-woman squad of the 2016 win. With Sara Däbritz also absent through injury, interim coach Horst Hrubesch, who will give way to Christian Wück after the Olympics, will require new leaders to emerge during the Games and the Euro 2025 qualifiers.
One of those may well be Sjoeke Nüsken. The 23-year-old made her Germany debut back in 2021 but missed out on the squad for the postponed Euros the following year. She made the 2023 World Cup squad but only played a few minutes in a tame group-stage exit. After that tournament, Nüsken left Eintracht Frankfurt for Chelsea, where her versatility and, more surprisingly, her goal scoring made a real impact.
“Nusken has a natural ability to be in the right spaces inside the box,” her Chelsea coach Emma Hayes, who has now left to coach the USA, said after a hat trick in the season just gone.
“She’s a box player, no question. She wants to be there, and the third goal epitomized her desire, her positioning and her quality. I might give her a game in goal as well next week, just to try it out.”
All-rounder with a scoring touch
Although Hayes never quite followed through on that idea, Nüsken’s all-round abilities mark her out as a likely leader of the new Germany guard. Tall, strong, good in the air and with a smart, reliable range of passing, Nüsken has also added goals to her game. After 9 in 47 Bundesliga games, she’s already racked up 8 in 21 in the Women’s Super League and scored a memorable double in the quarterfinal of the Champions League against Ajax.
“I believe the switch to Chelsea, the season, and the many goals she scored, that obviously has something to do with the self-confidence of a player. We also notice that in training,” said her Germany teammate Lea Schüller.
She will likely start in midfield in Paris, having forged strong links with Sydney Lohmann and Lena Oberdorf. But Nüsken doesn’t necessarily think what the teamsheet says will be reflected on the pitch.
“I can be used a bit more unpredictably,” she told Kicker magazine earlier this year.
“When the opponent sees the lineup, they don’t know exactly where I will be used.”
Nüsken’s first season in England has made her a better player, she believes, and she praised the WSL’s ability to sell out larger stadiums regularly as well as a style that is “a bit faster, wilder, more aggressive” than the German league.
Growing in importance
Hrubesch’s side have been drawn in a tricky group in Paris, with World Cup co-hosts and semifinalists Australia, four time gold medalists USA and Zambia, who boast the world’s most expensive player in Racheal Kundananji.
But even before that, they face two crucial games in qualifying for next summer’s Euros — away in Iceland and at home against Austria on July 12 and 16.
The veteran coach is likely to rely on the player he refers to as “kleinen Nüsken” (small Nüsken) because — the player thinks — he’s unsure how to pronounce Sjoeke, in those games too.
“She always made herself small at the beginning, but now I hope that she will make herself even bigger,” Hrubesch said recently.
“On the one hand, she can influence games, and on the other hand, she can also make a physical impact. She is actually pretty complete all around, but there is still a lot to be done.”
An Olympic medal, to follow on from the WSL title she won with Chelsea this year, wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
Edited by: Chuck Penfold
