Following the end of the Urs-Fischer era, 1. FC Union Berlin has placed their crisis team in the hands of a woman. Since the end of November, Marie-Louise Eta has been sitting on the sidelines as the assistant coach for the club's first men's team!
The 32-year-old had previously coached the club's U19 junior team and is a former Bundesliga player herself. Between 2008 and 2018, she played for Turbine Potsdam, Hamburger SV, BV Cloppenburg, and Werder Bremen. She also represented Germany in various youth national teams, from U15 to U23.
Foto: Sabine Gudath / IMAGO
Her coaching career began with Werder Bremen’s U15 boys. In 2021, she moved to the DFB (German Football Association) as an assistant coach for the U15 girls' national team. Yet, this wasn't enough to earn her full respect within the football business.
Shortly after Eta was appointed assistant coach for Union Berlin's men's team in mid-November, former Lewandowski advisor Maik Barthel mocked the new assistant coach in a post on X (formerly Twitter). He commented on her having to enter the locker room, sarcastically adding, "Let's not make German football a laughing stock." He continued by saying that disrupting the team hierarchy with transfers was bad enough, and there was no need for further stories like this.
Not long after, Barthel deleted his post and backtracked. In a new post, he wrote that making an assistant coach the topic of discussion would not help Union Berlin.
What Barthel missed was this: 1. FC Union didn’t make Marie-Louise Eta a topic; they made her the assistant coach. Barthel made it an issue himself, and it had consequences. One of his clients fired him. Potsdam national player Kevin Schade parted ways with Barthel, stating that he did not share his advisor’s views at all. Kevin Schade proved to be a true feminist, standing for "openness, equality, and diversity."
In an interview with Kicker, Maik Barthel apologized for the failed post: "It was never my intention to make Mrs Eta the focus of my message or discredit her. I understand that my inappropriate wording made it seem that way. I’m sorry."
Amid all the controversy, a significant milestone was overshadowed: Marie-Louise Eta is the first female assistant coach in Bundesliga history. It took 60 years for a woman to be appointed to this position. As Der Spiegel titled it, “The football coach in the shark tank.” Here's hoping that comments like Maik Barthel's will be spared in the future, allowing her to simply do her job and that job is football.
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