They are favourites on Thursday to beat an Austrian team who finished second behind England in Group A.

"Austria have a strong team spirit and they run until their legs give out," said Popp.

"You can feel the euphoria within the team. We definitely cannot underestimate them.

"We know several of their players from the Frauen-Bundesliga, but that means that they know us as well. That can be both a pro and a con."

Germany underlined their credentials by winning Group B with a game to spare, beating Denmark, Spain and Finland without conceding a goal.

Die Nationalelf have been European champions on eight of the 12 occasions the tournament has been staged, winning the competition six times in a row between 1995 and 2013.

Their bid for a seventh consecutive title was ended with a shock quarter-final defeat by eventual runners-up Denmark in 2017, but they have been in scintillating form this time around.

And while Germany are yet to concede a goal, Austria's defence has been breached just once, in their 1-0 loss to hosts England in the tournament opener.

The players also know each other well from club football - 35 of the 46 members of the two squads play in the German Bundesliga - but Germany are likely to hold an advantage over their neighbours in attack, having scored nine times compared to Austria's three.

Austria's players covered a tournament-high 344km in their three group games but they recorded the lowest pass completion rate of the eight quarter-finalists with just 76%.

Austria were surprise semi-finalists in 2017 and knocked out two-time winners Norway to book their spot in the last eight, but boss Irene Fuhrmann is under no illusion as to the challenge posed by Martina Voss-Tecklenburg's Germany.

"It's fantastic and hard to believe that we made it through such a strong group to reach the quarter-finals," said Fuhrmann.

"We're very realistic about our next opponents: Germany have been playing very well - it will be tough."