Bulgaria’s national women’s football team ended the qualification for the World Cup in 2023 with a loss. In their last match of Group H, played at the Lokomotiv Stadium in Plovdiv, the Bulgarian women lost to Germany by 0:8. With the success, the German team finished top of the group with 27 points and secured direct qualification for next year’s World Cup finals, while Bulgaria finished in bottom sixth position with 10 defeats and no points.
Germany had complete control over what was happening on the field throughout the match and logically reached the final success. In the first half, the guests had many opportunities to score, but Roksana Shahanska intervened well after shots by Lea Schuller and Laura Freigang, and twice their teammates hit the post of the Bulgarian goal.
Still, in the 35th, Germany took the lead. Lea Schuller took advantage of a collective error in Bulgaria’s defense after a cross into the box from the right and converted from close range to give the visitors the lead. In the last minute of regular time of the first half, Germany scored a second goal. Laura Freigang scored from about 10 meters after an assist from Lea Schuller. A minute later, the visitors’ center forward scored her second goal of the match and Germany’s third in total. Lea Schuller was on target with a header from Jule Brand’s cross from the left. So the result went at 0:3 at half-time.
just 7 minutes after the game resumed, Lea Schuller completed her hat-trick to make the score 0:4. In the 54th minute, Sydney Lohmann scored the fifth goal with a strong shot from the edge of the penalty area.
Germany’s pressure continued and 10 minutes later Laura Freigang made it 0:6, scoring her second goal of the match.
In the 80th minute, the visitors from Germany were given the right to execute a penalty after the captain Sara Dabritz was brought down in the penalty area of Bulgaria. Reserve Svenja Huth stood behind the ball and made no mistake from the penalty spot to make the score 0:7. Only 4 minutes before the end of the match, Laura Freigang completed her hat-trick and thus the match ended with a score of 0:8 in favor of Germany.
The match was the last for the Bulgarian team in the World Qualifiers, in which they registered 10 defeats from 10 matches and finished in the last sixth position in the group without a point asset and with a goal difference of 1:37.
