BERLIN (AP) — As the first and only woman named head coach of Germany’s men’s professional soccer team, Sabrina Wittmann faces more pressure and scrutiny than most of her peers.
Wittmann has been coach of his hometown club Ingolstadt in the third division since May 2024, taking over for the final four games of the season. Ingolstadt did not lose a single match and won the Bavarian Cup, and Wittmann made history by getting the job permanently that June.
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“I opened the door for women a little bit. To be honest, at first I was afraid of closing the door so quickly (again),” Wittmann told reporters in an online call Friday.
“The whole pressure I felt in the beginning, I mean, you get used to it,” she said. “The best answer to all of this is that I get asked a lot more questions about football now than I did when I started. That’s what I love.”
support and adversity
Wittmann, 34, focuses on himself, his strengths and what he wants to achieve.
“I want to be the best because of myself, not because of other people… It feels really natural to me and it feels real. If a woman was trying to be a man, or trying to be at the same stage, that might not be natural,” she said.
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As a coach, she believes the most important thing is “people management” and the hardest part is making unpopular decisions. While demanding the best, empathy can go a long way in easing tensions.
“I feel really accepted. I always feel accepted,” she said, praising her club and general manager Dietmar Beiersdorfer for supporting her.
But Wittmann has also experienced negative comments on social media and even in the stadium.
“I try not to focus on those things because if it comes down to a conversation, whether it’s positive or negative, nine times out of 10 people will be positive and one person will be negative,” she said. “The loudest voices are sometimes the most negative, but nine people think it’s a good thing, so I try to focus on not making it bigger than it is.”
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The first step into the United States
Wittmann didn’t start playing football until he was 14 years old. She traveled to Kentucky, USA, as an exchange student and found work as an assistant coach through her host mother, a school teacher.
“I just fell in love with this job or this part of my football career. And then I came back (to Germany). I mean, I was still playing football and coaching at the same time,” she said.
Wittmann found that the sport in the United States was more physical than in Germany.
“I had never been to a gym before, so I went to the United States and we went to the gym every day, which we didn’t do in Germany,” she said. “When I came back here to play football, the girls told me I was playing more football than before.”
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contract extension
On Friday, Ingolstadt announced the extension of Wittmann’s contract. Ingolstadt enters the weekend in 11th place in the 20-team division and hosts Weir on Sunday, well outside the promotion and relegation spots.
“We’ve done well in the last two years even though we didn’t make it to the second division, but I think we need to make some contributions in the next few years,” Wittmann said, stressing the importance of long-term planning. “We need to grow healthy.”
Ingolstadt was relegated from the Bundesliga in 2017 and from the Second Division in 2019. They were promoted back to the Second Division in 2021, but were directly relegated the following season.
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Wittmann, who watched the Ingolstadt game in the Bundesliga as a fan from the stands, said the upgrade may have come too soon.
“I think the last few years, especially under Didi Beiersdorfer, our goal was to build something,” she said, noting the team lost 19 players last summer. “Not in a sad way, but (because) we develop players that go into the second division and even the first division. I’m a youth team coach and, first of all, it’s developing players. The better the players get, the better the team ends up being.”
Wittmann’s contract was renewed just over a month after he received the German Football Association’s highest coaching certification, a professional license.
“It’s a big dream to get a pro license one day because it means you’ll be able to train every team on the planet,” she said.
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Opportunities for women remain limited
In 2023, Union Berlin’s Marie-Louise Etta became the Bundesliga’s first female assistant coach, and in 2017 Bibiana Steinhaus became the Bundesliga’s first female referee, but otherwise there have been few breakthroughs for women in German men’s professional football, while there are many men involved in the women’s game. Christian Wück, male, head coach of the German women’s football team.
Wittmann acknowledged that it “might be difficult to find” decision-makers among the 36 clubs in Germany’s top two men’s divisions to hire a woman as head coach, but she was confident it would happen.
“I’ve had a lot of conversations with other decision-makers at other clubs,” she said. “I mean, there’s a difference between talking to me and telling me I’m doing a good job and making a decision. I know it’s going to be difficult.”
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For now, all her focus is on her hometown club.
“One day, it might happen that I have to leave here and hopefully because I’ll be able to coach a higher-ranked team,” Wittman said. “I do believe it’s going to be difficult. I know that, and it’s not going to be easy, but I think in five years, nine years, 10 years, whatever, I hope things will change, not just for me but for every other woman out there who wants to be a coach.”
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