Sabrina Wittmann became the first female coach to lead a professional men’s soccer team, after making her debut on the bench of Ingolstadt in the match that ended 1-1 in Germany’s third Bundesliga last Sunday.
Wittmann took over from Michael Köllner, whose contract was terminated by the club by mutual agreement because it was considered that the team had stagnated sportingly.
There are some antecedents in Germany, among which the case of Marie-Louise Etawho in November 2023 became technical assistant of the Union Berlin after the dismissal of Urs Fischer and his assistants, and came to be on the bench not only in the Bundesliga, but also in the Champions League.
In the Bundesliga, due to the sanction of head coach Nenad Bjelica, he managed a match against Darmstadt, although as a team with other assistants.
The other examples in Germany are from the regional leagues.
“For some years now, women have had the right to vote. It is good that football, about which there are many clichés, shows that many prejudices are false,” said the Ingolstadt captain. Lukas FrödeAfter the match.
The newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung from Munich comments on Fröde’s statement, pointing out that it says something about football that, between the moment in which women’s suffrage was approved and Wittmann’s debut, 106 years had to pass.
“No one has given her this opportunity. And we realized very quickly that she is a good coach,” said Fröde.
The scorer of the Ingolstadt goal, Sebastian Groeningsaid that in a modern world there is no reason to pay attention to whether the team is led by a male or female coach.
“Sabrina has great qualities. It doesn’t matter if she is a woman or a man,” he said.
Wittmann, 32, had previously managed Ingolstadt’s youth ranks and has now taken over in the first team, initially on an interim basis until the end of the season.
