BERLIN (AP) — Marie-Louise Ita wasn’t in much of a mood to celebrate after making her debut as the Bundesliga’s first female manager on Saturday.
Eta was congratulated by Union Berlin fans before the match, but could not live up to the occasion as the team lost 2-1 at home to Wolfsburg and were now without a win in 12 games.
Etta said this before the match. I just want to keep workingdiverted attention from her own wall-breaking exploits and instead focused on her mission to ensure Union’s Bundesliga survival.
she was appointed interim coach 5 games left until the end of the season. With four points now, Union are one point away from the relegation zone and six points shy of the relegation zone, despite their late advantage against Wolfsburg.
“First of all, of course it’s disappointing to lose this game, but I’m very happy with the way we approached the game today and the performance of our players,” Eta said. “This week we talked about a lot of things and I saw the players approach training with good energy and strong belief. And today we executed very well the plan we developed over the past few days.”
Her team missed a number of good chances, with Wolfsburg goalkeeper Kamil Grabara proving to be the decisive figure, while lapses at the back allowed Patrick Wimmer and Dženan Pejčinović to score early in the first half for the visitors.
“Today we just focused on the main points. At the end of the day, it’s about football and I was really looking forward to playing a Bundesliga game here,” Eta said. “In the end, it’s frustrating and disappointing to leave here without getting any points.”
Eta, 34, became the first female coach to cross the top divisions of men’s football’s ‘big five’ European leagues, but she is not dwelling on her achievements at all.
“Football Goddess”
During the pregame lineup announcement, Union fans greeted each player’s name with a roar of “Fasball Got!” (The God of Soccer) and the name of the coach were announced, and cheers and applause erupted.
“It’s a big fuss!” the fans cheered, the goddess of soccer.
Eta was previously First female assistant coach She also played in the men’s Bundesliga for Union in 2023 and is the coach of the club’s U19 men’s team, where she is affectionately known as Louis.
She made four changes to the squad that lost to bottom Heidenheim last weekend and brought back Union veteran Christopher Trimmell.
“For Louis, of course, it’s difficult to impose all new things in just three or four days so that everything can be implemented immediately. That’s completely understandable. It would have been difficult for any manager, but we still managed to execute a solid game plan well. A lot of things went well,” Trimmel said. “I’m staying positive.”
Union will play Leipzig away in the Champions League next match and then face relegation rival Cologne at home. At Mainz, they will face former manager Urs Fischer, who led the team to promotion in 2019, and will finish the season at home against Augsburg on May 16th.
“We hit it off right away,” Union defenseman Derrick Cone said of Eta’s influence as head coach. “She shared her game plan with us and we executed what she gave us. We feel very comfortable with her because there are not many new things. Especially today we tried to give her a win, but unfortunately we did not succeed. As I said, we will move on. We will analyze this and prepare for Leipzig and try to give her a gift in Leipzig.”
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