Image source: IMAGO / Matthias Koch
Union Berlin is making history. Or rather: Marie-Louise Eta is making history. The 34-year-old takes over the first team in Berlin following the dismissal of head coach Steffen Baumgart, becoming the first woman to hold a head coach position in a men’s top-5 league in Europe.
Eta is already familiar with the environment of men’s football: from November 2023 to May 2025 she worked as assistant coach of the first team at Union Berlin, and since July last year she has been head coach of the U19 side. From the summer onwards, Eta, former German youth international and winner of the Women’s Champions League with Turbine Potsdam, will take over the women’s team of Union Berlin.
The coaching change caused a worldwide reaction. The news that a woman is taking charge of a men’s team in a top-5 league went around the world. It did not only receive support. The fact that Eta is a woman made some football fans take notice, and unfortunately not all reactions were positive. On Sunday morning, comment sections were full of misogynistic posts. Comments such as «Go back to the kitchen», «Someone has to wash the kits», or «Embarrassing» circulated widely. Yet hardly any of those who wrote such comments seem to know who Eta actually is.
After ending her playing career in 2017/18, the German started her coaching pathway early and worked with various youth teams in Germany. In 2023 she joined Union Berlin as assistant coach. She also obtained her Pro Licence in 2023 as the only woman among 15 men in the course, taking the next step in her coaching career.
With Eta’s appointment as head coach of Union Berlin’s men’s first team, she is writing history in the highest levels of professional football. She is paving the way for many young female coaches and showing that women can succeed in men’s football at the highest level.
Even before her, there have been women who broke into this male-dominated environment. In 1999, Carolina Morace became the first woman to coach a men’s professional team in Europe when she took over Italian third-division side Viterbese. Corinne Diacre was in charge of Clermont Foot in France’s Ligue 2 from 2014 to 2017 before later becoming head coach of the French women’s national team. In July 2023, Hannah Dingley became the first woman to manage a men’s professional team in English football when she was appointed interim manager of Forest Green Rovers in League Two, although she did not lead the team in a competitive match.
The decision to appoint Eta as head coach is therefore also significant for women in football as a whole. At the centre of such a role should not be gender, but professional competence. Marie-Louise Eta clearly brings that competence, otherwise she would not have earned the Pro Licence like every other coach in the league or reached this position. Still, football continues to show that women often have to prove themselves twice as much to receive the same level of recognition.
From my own perspective as an aspiring coach, this is something that is felt repeatedly. It makes it all the more inspiring when women like Eta take this path consistently and open new doors in the process. It is to be hoped that, in the long run, performance will matter more than prejudice, and that Eta’s work will also convince those who do not trust her with this role because of her gender.