Bernadett Szabo/Reuters
VALENCIENNES, France — Germany is the only country besides the United States to win the Women’s World Cup more than once. But its players entered this summer’s global soccer championship both frustrated and cleverly defiant about their obscurity.
A much-discussed advertisement by a team sponsor boldly acknowledged the women’s accomplishments and the prejudice of Germany’s male-dominated soccer culture: Their reward for winning the first of eight European championships? A tea set. Their words of encouragement for winning the World Cup in 2003 and 2007 and the Olympics in 2016: “‘Women are just there to have babies.