Why must Liberty’s Leoni Fiebich’s mindset change when playing for Team Germany?
Yahoo Sports' Caroline Fenton and women's basketball writer Cassandra Negley are joined by Richard Cohen, women's basketball analyst and writer for Her Hoops Stats, to preview Group A of the 2026 FIBA World Cup. Catch the full conversation on the "Hoops 360" podcast, and subscribe on Apple podcasts , Spotify , YouTube, or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
We have Group A, Japan, Spain, Germany, Mali.
Germany is interesting to me, I think most of all because we all know Leonie Fiebich, right?
She finally comes back healthy.
She seems to be the key cog with the Liberty.
They're coached by Olaf Lange, the assistant in Toronto who's been in this league a while, coached her in New York.
Is there something specific you're looking at that will determine this group?
Germany are interesting, as you say, because, partly because they're the home team.
And, you know, we've seen with a lot of previous international tournaments, home, home court advantage means a lot.
But they will miss Satu Sabally.
They obvious- that obviously makes them just significantly weaker in terms of talent.
Luisa Geiselsohler has been a major piece for them and has barely played in Portland for the last couple of months because she's not in the rotation at all.
So they will be reliant on Fiebich to step up and play a more significant role for Germany than she does for New York.
Obviously, she's important for New York, but it's in a very specific kind of role as a defensive player, as an off-ball wing.
Whereas for Germany, they want her to do more.
They will put the ball in her hands.
They will ask her to create, ask her to score.
So it, it does require a sort of change of mindset from her.
And obviously, it's quite a quick change given she was playing for the Liberty two days ago and she's now gonna play for Germany in two more days.
So yeah, I think it is interesting on a, on a neutral floor, I would make Spain the favorites for this group.
But with Germany as, with home advantage, that makes them interesting.
And Japan are always, always very entertaining to watch.
They move the ball incredibly quickly.
They can shoot from anywhere.
You've seen what Mai Yamamoto can do in Las Vegas the last few weeks.
They've got other players who can do very similar things.
But they are always small, and Spain have bigs, Germany have bigs that can threaten them.
Mali, it would be a surprise if they win a game, to be perfectly honest.
I read that in your piece.
If this is what their, their true level- They're missing, missing key players as well, even on top of, you know, they, they would be the underdogs in this group anyway, but they are missing a couple of key players on top of that.
