New set of trainers: Rudraneil Sengupta on women coaches, managers in elite men’s football

On April 19, the crowd roared something slightly different after one name. “Marie-Louise Eta!” went the announcer. “Fusballgottin (Football Goddess)!” replied the crowd.

With that began an extraordinary chapter. Eta’s first game in charge of Union Berlin marked the first game with a woman at the helm of a top-flight football club in Europe.

The city had been abuzz ever since the 34-year-old was named manager of the team, with journalists from around the world flocking to attend her first press-conference and first match.

There are almost no women managers in top-tier men’s football, even today. Eta, as a result, has set several records. She was the first female assistant coach in the history of the men’s Bundesliga, when she was given that position by Union Berlin in 2023. Two years on, she was the overwhelming favourite to steer the club out of trouble after a season in which they were heading towards the bottom half of the table, just above the relegation zone.

A former player who helped Turbine Potsdam win the Women’s Champions League and three Bundesliga titles between 2008 and 2011, she was already contracted to take over Union Berlin’s women’s team from next season. She will move on to that post after coaching the men’s team through the last five games of this season.

In the lower divisions, meanwhile, more women are now coaching men’s teams and serving as referees.

German third-tier club FC Ingolstadt are currently in their third season under coach Sabrina Wittmann. French second-division club Clermont was managed by the legendary former footballer Corinne Diacre until 2017.

Meanwhile, the French referee Stephanie Frappart has been officiating at top-flight men’s matches, including the 2022 World Cup. (There was one match in that tournament where she led an all-women team of on-field officials.)

Indian football has seen a breakthrough too. Goa’s Shona Miranda was sports physiotherapist to Churchill Brothers FC in the 2010s, back when the club was in the top flight. (She has since moved on to the position of physiotherapist to London’s Tottenham Hotspur women’s team.)

Most of these professionals have said they wish their gender wasn’t such a talking point. They want their game to do the talking instead.

“In doing all my coaching studies and badges,” as Diacre put it in an interview in 2018, “I have never, ever, had any training module that says: ‘If it’s women, this is how you coach, and if it’s men, that’s how you coach’.”

(Email Rudraneil Sengupta on rudraneil@ gmail.com. The views expressed are personal)