Eta wants focus on football
\n LONDON
\nUnion Berlin coach Marie-Louise Eta said Thursday she was looking forward to questions about football rather than her pioneering role as the first female manager of a men\u2019s team in a top European league.
\nEta, 34, was named Union coach on Sunday after predecessor Steffen Baumgart was fired. Speaking to the media for the first time since the announcement, Eta sought to shift the focus to Saturday\u2019s home clash with Wolfsburg and Union\u2019s battle to beat the drop.
\n\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the match starting and when it\u2019s finally about football,\u201d Eta told reporters.
\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
\n\u201cThey trust me here, and I\u2019m delighted by that trust. I\u2019m happy to be here.\u201d
\nUnion sit seven points from the relegation playoff spot with five games remaining, while Wolfsburg are second last and are seven points from safety.
\nEta, who became the first female assistant coach in Bundesliga history at Union in 2023, is still slated to take over the club\u2019s women\u2019s team in the summer regardless of how the men\u2019s side finishes the season.
\nThe announcement has attracted major attention in Germany and abroad.
\nWhile much of the response has been positive, including from Bayern Munich manager Vincent Kompany who called the announcement \u201creally important\u201d, it has also attracted a series of negative comments made on social media.
\n\u201cThere simply wasn\u2019t time to delve into anything. I\u2019ve been told that there have been hate comments.
\n\u201cBut I also know that there have been a lot of positive comments, and I think that\u2019s wonderful and should outweigh the negative ones.\u201d
\nEta told reporters the negative posts \u201cdon\u2019t bother me because they say much, much more about the people who post it rather than those it is directed at.\u201d
\nThe coach also won support from her opposite number in Saturday\u2019s crucial match: Wolfsburg veteran manager Dieter Hecking, who backed Eta on Thursday.
\n\u201cI know Marie-Louise Eta personally and I consider her very competent. She\u2019s funny, articulate and knows how to lead a team,\u201d Hecking said.
\n\u201cIf Union Berlin believes she has the professional and interpersonal skills to lead the team, then that says it all. And those who vent their frustrations online or on social media \u2013 their IQ is zero.\u201d
\nThe veteran coach said the never-relegated Wolves, who won the Bundesliga title in 2009 and the German Cup in 2015 in Hecking\u2019s previous stint at the club, can still beat the drop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eta wants focus on football LONDON Union Berlin coach Marie-Louise Eta said Thursday she was looking forward to questions about football rather than her pioneering role as the first female manager of a men\u2019s team in a top European league. Eta, 34, was named Union coach on Sunday after predecessor Steffen Baumgart was fired. Speaking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-542451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n