All eyes will be on Marie-Louise Eta on Saturday when she makes history as the first female head coach of a men\u2019s team in the German football league, but experts believe the milestone moment should serve as the beginning of long-overdue recognition for women\u2019s leadership skills and abilities in a male-dominated sport.<\/p>\n
Eta will be in the limelight when Union Berlin host FC Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga, but the trailblazing head coach\u00a0wants the focus to shift away from her unique achievement and on to the game once the action begins at the Stadion An der Alten Forsterei.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the match starting and when it\u2019s finally about football,\u201d Eta said in her first pre-match news conference as head coach on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cI know this has a social impact and significance,\u201d Eta said, but added: \u201cFor me, it\u2019s always been about football, about working with people, and about what I enjoy most: Being as successful as possible together.\u201d<\/p>\n Eta made headlines last week when Berlin entrusted her with the job following the dismissal of Steffen Baumgart, making her the first woman to lead a men\u2019s team in one of the top five European football leagues.<\/p>\n Amid the media frenzy and recognition of her appointment as a breakthrough for women\u2019s role in men\u2019s football, leading voices in women\u2019s football have underlined the need for marking this move as a watershed moment.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the turning point will come when this is not the exception, it\u2019s just accepted,\u201d football expert Yvonne Harrison told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we look at the experiences of other successful female coaches, in the women\u2019s game in particular, we hear that they don\u2019t want to be the only ones.<\/p>\n \u201cThe visibility of successful women in these roles, particularly moving into the men\u2019s game, is something that we haven\u2019t seen a huge amount of.\u201d<\/p>\n Eta is no stranger to making history. She was the first woman to be named an assistant coach in the Bundesliga in 2023, also with Berlin.<\/p>\n For now, the 34-year-old will take over for the remainder of the season for the 11th-placed team.<\/p>\n While her appointment was widely celebrated, it was followed in equal parts by sexist and derogatory online abuse, which the club Union swiftly denounced.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have 100 percent confidence in Loui, with complete conviction. I find it crazy that we have to deal with this in this day and age, that we have to justify ourselves,\u201d Union\u2019s director of men\u2019s professional football, Horst Heldt, said.<\/p>\n Women have been part of the men\u2019s game, taking on various roles despite backlash.<\/p>\n Stephanie Frappart, Salima Mukasanga and Yoshimi Yamashita have led the way by refereeing men\u2019s games for the past few years.<\/p>\n Eta has acknowledged the women paving the path before her, noting she was\u00a0\u201cfar from the first woman working in professional men\u2019s football\u201d while also recognising those who see her appointment as having \u201ca signalling effect\u201d.<\/p>\n However, women seem relegated to administrative roles at the top level more than the technical side, according to Harrison, who is the CEO of Women in Football.<\/p>\n \u201cWomen are still massively underrepresented in those decision-making roles, and we know that culturally, particularly within men\u2019s football,\u201d said Harrison, a sport industry executive who has long called for gender inclusivity in football.<\/p>\n She believes that where women were once deliberately kept out of the game some 50-odd years ago, those barriers have been removed, but there are still no clear pathways for them to follow.<\/p>\n Harrison insists a system needs to be in place to help build a conducive environment for women\u2019s progress in professional football.<\/p>\n She called for an overhaul to ensure that appointments like Eta\u2019s are in the mainstream and materialise because of the system and not solely due to an individual\u2019s resilience and determination.<\/p>\n \u201cMen have a responsibility to be able to help create the best and most inclusive environments,\u201d Harrison said, adding that men\u2019s football shouldn\u2019t be seen as the pinnacle of sporting excellence, either.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s about finding that balance and helping to nudge that culture of football, particularly within the men\u2019s game, that women being around is completely normal, completely acceptable, and they are contributing as they always have to the success of the game,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Harrison, who is a gender equity advocate, also highlighted the lack of visibility of successful women in such roles, particularly in the men\u2019s game.<\/p>\n The United Kingdom-based expert equated \u201creal progress\u201d with a shift in conversation towards understanding that highly competitive environments require the best person for the role, regardless of gender.<\/p>\n Emma Hayes, head coach of the United States women\u2019s national team, echoed a similar sentiment following Eta\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fantastic to see the football world finally waking up to the quality of female coaches. A good coach is a good coach regardless of gender,\u201d the former Chelsea Women manager said.<\/p>\n Eta will be under tight scrutiny as Union play their remaining five games of the season, having won just two games since Christmas and sitting seven points above the relegation playoff spot.<\/p>\n As a player with Turbine Potsdam, Eta won the Champions League in 2010, along with three Bundesliga titles. She has already committed to taking over Union Berlin\u2019s women\u2019s Bundesliga team in a few months.<\/p>\n The initial tug of war between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s sides that Eta was caught between ended when club President Dirk Zingler confirmed that Eta would finish off with the men\u2019s team, before heading to their counterparts and honouring her contract there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n All eyes will be on Marie-Louise Eta on Saturday when she makes history as the first female head coach of a men\u2019s team in the German football league, but experts believe the milestone moment should serve as the beginning of long-overdue recognition for women\u2019s leadership skills and abilities in a male-dominated sport. Eta will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
![\"Union](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AFP__20260414__A7QJ2NQ__v1__HighRes__FblGerBundesligaUnionBerlinTraining-1776436615.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
\u2018A good coach is a good coach regardless of gender\u2019<\/h2>\n
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