Meet the experts: Anja Mittag

In addition to her World Cup winner's medals, she also won three UEFA European Championships (2005, 2009, 2013), a UEFA U19 Championship (2002) and Olympic Gold in 2016. In 2017 she became the first player to score 50 goals in the UEFA Women’s Champions League/UEFA Women’s Cup.  

She retired from playing in 2020 and is now the assistant coach of RB Leipzig’s senior women’s team, who have just been promoted to the Frauen-Bundesliga. She was also part of the FIFA Technical Study Group that attended the Women’s U20 World Cup in Costa Rica last year.

As a former centre-forward, Mittag always takes a keen interest in forward play. As she explained, she likes to analyse how forward play affects defensive structures:

“There are a number of talented forwards that we saw in Costa Rica who have already made the step up to senior level and could feature for their teams at this World Cup. Salma Paralluelo (Spain) and Linda Caicedo (Colombia) really stood out for us, and I am interested to see how they adapt to playing against some of the best defenders in the world.

“I remember making that next step in my own playing career and it was not easy. You get less time and there is more physicality. Also, the senior game is much faster, and I think this World Cup will be even faster than 2019.“

“With the competition increasing from 24 to 32 teams, I think there will be some surprise results because there are some very good teams, and it will be interesting to see their approaches and the players who are playing in a World Cup for the first time.  

“There are of course some important players missing through injury but that gives others the opportunity to step up and show what they can do for their teams,” she added.

Mittag will be based in Perth for this competition, attending all the matches to be played there.