2023-11-24 07:45:00
In mid-November, the Berlin football club Union (Fußballclub Union Berlin e. V.), which ranks last in the Bundesliga table, announced the resignation of coach Urs Fischer. Marco Grote was appointed acting head coach. The role of his assistant this Saturday, November 25, in the home match against Augsburg (Fußball-Club Augsburg 1907 e. V.) will be performed by 32-year-old Marie-Louise Eta.
Marie-Louise Eta recently coached the youth team of the Berlin club Union together with Marco Grothe. She herself is a former football player, and an outstanding one at that. As part of the team of the women’s professional football club “Turbine” (FFC Turbine) from Potsdam in the 2009/2010 season, she won the Champions League. She won the Bundesliga three times. At the age of 26, Marie-Louise decided to take up coaching. Werder Bremen (Sportverein Werder Bremen) was the last club for which she played. After him, Marie-Louise began coaching youth teams of the German Football Club (DFB).
Now she trains adult football players. And men. According to Union club president Dirk Zingler, talent and calling have nothing to do with gender at all: “This decision was made not because she is a woman, but because she is a football coach.”
Women don’t train men very often. And not in the Bundesliga
Not many women can say that they have trained both women and men professionally. One of the few is Imke Wübbenhorst, currently the head coach of the women’s team of the Swiss club “Berner Sport Club Young Boys 1898”. At the end of 2018, she made headlines when she took over as head coach of the men’s team at German club BV Cloppenburg, but he did not play in the main Bundesliga. It is interesting that Imke Wübbenhorst and Marie-Louise Etha played together in the women’s team of this club for two years – and very successfully: first in the second and then in the first Bundesliga.
“We were very similar,” says Wübbenhorst in an interview with DW. Even then, she and Marie-Louise aspired to become coaches. “We could talk about the game at a higher level – for example, about pressing. Sometimes we stood on the field and discussed how to “We could solve this or that problem. And soon we realized it on the football fields as coaches.”
Imke Wübbenhorst is the coach of the women’s team of the Swiss club Young Boys. Photo: Manuel Winterberger/Just Pictures/IMAGO
Imke Wübbenhorst believes Marie-Louise Eta’s new role as assistant coach of the Union men’s team is ideal for Marie-Louise Eta: “She is a very calm person, knows how to communicate with different types of players. And I think she enjoys working in the background as part of the team.” . This one has already learned to cope with resistance in men’s football. “Of course, I noticed that some players treat me differently, not like a male coach. And this, of course, is not very pleasant,” Eta admitted to the online publication uefa.com. “But I tried not to pay attention to it attention and concentrate on the main thing.”
Working with stars requires a great sense of tact
Imke Wübbenhorst was also convinced that the demand for a female coach in the men’s team is higher. But there is nothing left to do but to do their job well: to convince the players “with effective exercises during training and good analysis, to contribute to their further development.” “If you go from being a former player to becoming a coach, they won’t be immediately impressed by your career. For football stars like Miroslav Klose, it would of course be easier in this sense,” says Imke.
Marie-Louise Eta on the field – with SV Werder BremenPhoto: Rauch/nordphoto/picture alliance
In the 2019/20 season, Imke Wübbenhorst completed an internship at the Bundesliga club RB Leipzig (RasenBallsport Leipzig), which at that time was coached by the current head coach of the German national team, Julian Nagelsmann. You need to have a great sense of tact when working with top-level professionals, says Imke Wübbenhorst: “At the top clubs there are a lot of foreign players, they have a different view of the world. The players there are more sensitive because they are used to being in the spotlight and making money a lot of money. And when you criticize them, you have to be very, very careful.”
Painted nails do not interfere with training
“In Europe – England, Spain, Germany – football is still predominantly a men’s game,” concludes Imke Wübbenhorst. “If the role of women changes, and the view of her in society as a whole, then it will become easier. At the moment, older men money still decides who gets to coach and who doesn’t. That has to change.”
Women should not hide their femininity in order to survive in men’s football, Wübbenhorst is sure: “I am a strong personality, and this does not depend on my gender.” One day she wondered, is it possible to train football players when your nails are painted? “Now I’m older and more experienced. And I think: why not?! It doesn’t depend on my nails whether I’m a good coach or a bad one.”
#time #mens #Bundesliga #woman #coach