During the buildup to the 2025 Euro Flag 2025, IFAF has posed three questions to the head coaches of the men’s and women’s teams ranked in the Top Six in the world, who are about to compete for continental glory.

Jona Winkel is the head coach of German’s women's team who having coached tackle football in Germany in the GFL and the United States, is focused entirely on flag football with the aim of Germany qualifying for the Olympics. He started two university flag football programs in Germany and in 2021 was hired as the offensive coordinator for the German women flag football team and one year later promoted to head coach. Since November 2023 he has overseen all national team coaches for Germany’s flag football program.

What are the goals for your team in this tournament ?

We are in the last but also biggest stage of our rebuild having to replace Stefanie Thiele, our starting quarterback for 15 years, who retired after last year’s IFAF World Championship. Still, we are very confident in the abilities of our young team. We want to finish at least in the top three and are confident that we might even win the whole tournament.

What will be the strengths of your team and which players should we watch for?

We have a very balanced team, in recent tournaments both offense and defense were equal part of our successes. New starting quarterback Saskia Nühse is still very new to the game but might be a star in the making and we are very happy to get star receiver Ellen Riess back from her Achilles injury.

What do you think of the group you have been drawn into?

The way the sport is evolving everywhere, there are no more easy opponents anymore. Upstart Ireland is improving rapidly and Denmark, which won the European Championship in 2017 should never be taken lightly. With Italy and us in the same group, this might be one of the toughest groups to finish in first place. That said, we are very confident to win our group and advance.