Playing Soccer in Germany

Authored By:

Skyler F.

The thing that shocked me the most about Germany is how unpopular women’s soccer is. Men’s soccer is very common and if you play it and are good you are almost automatically a “cool” kid, but what happened with women’s soccer?

First of all, it is not uncommon for girls to play on a boy’s team. Many of these girls end up being very good and developing skills that other girls do not develop until later on, just due to the nature of the game. There are many girls-only teams, although since many girls do not play on them, there is not always one at every club. Due to this, I have ended up playing on a local women’s team, which seemed scary at first, but ended up being one of my favorite things so far.

On my first day, I was so scared and many of the German soccer terms were new to me, which has subsided since. I had already made the team before I had even tried out, which made me feel as though I had big expectations to live up to. I started to get to know the team, in which everyone was super nice and helpful. I developed a rhythm for the team and started to understand how everything on the new team was.

In my first game, I played a comfortable position, center-attacking midfield, although this drastically changed the next game where I played right forward. This was very different than what I usually play, but I knew that I knew the game of soccer and could easily adjust to any position I needed, so I adjusted. This became a usual spot for me, although I played a little bit all around the field.

I started to notice that our team was doing extremely well. We were winning many games and everyone started taking notice of it. Our coaches were very happy with us too, rewarding us with pizza and making a bet about new jerseys. We were going into the last games of the season, and we were continuously in the top four, a close battle between all four teams. We continued to win and push, but sadly the last game before the winter break, we tied 0-0. This landed us in second place to start the spring season with 23 points. It was sad to see the fall fly by as I know I am getting closer to leaving, although excited to start again in the spring!