Female coach Sabrina Wittmann blazing a lonely trail in men's soccer in Germany

BERLIN — As the first and only woman to be appointed head coach of a men's professional soccer team in Germany, Sabrina Wittmann faces more pressure and scrutiny than most of her counterparts.

Wittmann has been the coach of her hometown club, third-division Ingolstadt, since May 2024, when she took over for the last four games of the season. Ingolstadt didn’t lose any and won the Bavarian Cup, and Wittmann made history when she was given the job on a permanent basis that June.

“I opened the door a little for women. And at the beginning I was honestly afraid of closing the door as quickly (again),” Wittmann told journalists in an online call on Friday.

“The whole pressure which I felt at the beginning, I mean, you get used to it," she said. "The best answer to all this is right now I get asked a lot more questions about football than at the beginning. And that’s something I love.”

Support and adversity

The 34-year-old Wittmann is focused on herself, her strengths, and what she wants to achieve.

“I wanted to be the best because of me, not because of everybody else … that makes it really natural for me, and authentic. If a woman tries to be a man, or tries to be at the same stage, it’s probably unnatural,” she said.

As a coach she feels it’s “people management” more than anything else, and the hardest part comes with making unpopular decisions. Empathy goes a long way toward easing tensions while demanding the best.

“I feel really accepted. I always felt accepted,” she said, crediting her club and the support she receives from managing director Dietmar Beiersdorfer.

But Wittmann has also experienced negative comments on social media and even in stadiums.

“I try not to be focused on that stuff, because if it comes down to a conversation, positive or negative, nine out of ten are really positive and one is negative,” she said. “The loudest one is sometimes the most negative one, but there are nine people who think it’s a good thing, so I try to focus on that and not make things bigger than they are.”

First steps in USA

Wittmann did not start playing soccer until she was 14 years old. She went to Kentucky in the United States as an exchange student, and found work as an assistant coach there through her host mother, a schoolteacher.

“I just fell in love with this job or this part of being in football. Then I went back (to Germany). I mean, I was still playing and being a coach at the same time,” she said.

The game is much more physical in the U.S. compared to Germany, Wittmann found.

“I’d never been in the gym before, so I went to the U.S. we had like gym every day, something we didn’t do in Germany,” she said. “When I came back playing soccer here the girls told me that I play a lot more physical than I did before.”

Contract extension

On Friday, Ingolstadt announced it was extending Wittman’s contract. Entering the weekend, Ingolstadt was 11th in the 20-team division before hosting Verl on Sunday, far from the relegation and promotion places.

“We did a good job in the last two years even if we didn’t get up to the second division, but I think we need to build up something for years,” Wittman said, stressing the importance of long-term planning. “We need to grow healthily.”

Ingolstadt was relegated from the Bundesliga in 2017 and from the second division in 2019. It was promoted back to the second division in 2021 but went straight back down the following season.

Wittmann, who’d watched Ingolstadt in the Bundesliga from the stands as a fan, said promotion had probably come too soon.

“I think the last few years, especially with Didi Beiersdorfer, it was about building something,” she said, pointing out that the team lost 19 players last summer. “Not in a sad way, but (because) we developed players who went up to the second league or even the first league. I’m a youth coach and first of all, it’s developing players. The better the player gets, the better the team is at the end.”

The contract extension comes just over a month after Wittmann got her pro license, the German soccer federation’s highest coaching credential.

“It was a big dream someday having the pro license because it means that you are able to train every team on this planet,” she said.

Still limited opportunities for women

In 2023, Union Berlin’s Marie-Louise Eta became the Bundesliga’s first female assistant coach, and in 2017 Bibiana Steinhaus became the first female referee in the Bundesliga, but otherwise there have been few breakthroughs for women in men’s professional soccer in Germany, while there are plenty of men involved in women’s soccer. Christian Wück, a man, is coach of the Germany women’s team.

Wittmann acknowledged it was “probably hard to find” decision-makers in the 36 clubs of Germany’s men’s first two divisions who would employ a woman as head coach, but she said she believes it will happen.

“I had a lot of conversations with other decision-makers from other clubs,” she said. “I mean, there’s a difference (between) talking to me and telling me I’m doing a good job and taking the decision. I know that’s gonna be difficult.”

For now, all her focus is on her hometown club.

“One day it’s probably going to happen and I have to leave here, hopefully because I’m able to coach an even higher-ranked team,” Wittmann said. “I do believe that’s going to be hard. I know that, and it’s not going to be easy, but I think five years, nine, ten years, whatever, I hope that things will change, and not only for me, but for every other woman who wants to be a coach.”