Paris 2024 Olympics: Freedom Fussball (Feli Rauch)

North Carolina Courage full-back Feli Rauch discusses the personal significance of finally making an Olympic squad, having missed out on Rio 2016 through injury as a teenager. Part of Germany’s EURO 2022 and 2023 World Cup squads, Rauch reflects on interim head coach Horst Hrubesch’s instinctive, attack-minded philosophy, the weight of expectation that comes with representing a major footballing nation, and what went wrong during a below-par World Cup campaign in Australia. She also revisits the emotional high of reaching the EURO 2022 final at a sold-out Wembley, describing the adrenaline of playing in front of a hostile crowd of 87,192 and the scale of the occasion compared to a Champions League semi-final in Barcelona’s Camp Nou.