{"id":3851,"date":"2026-04-12T02:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T02:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/3851\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T02:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T02:21:17","slug":"union-berlin-makes-history-with-marie-louise-eta-as-first-woman-to-lead-a-bundesliga-mens-team-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/3851\/","title":{"rendered":"Union Berlin makes history with Marie-Louise Eta as first woman to lead a Bundesliga men&#8217;s team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Union Berlin has appointed Marie-Louise Eta as the first female coach in charge of a men\u2019s team in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/soccer\/bundesliga\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bundesliga<\/a> as it bids to ensure its league survival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">The 34-year-old Eta takes over from Steffen Baumgart, who was fired with his assistants Danilo de Souza and Kevin McKenna after the team\u2019s 3-1 loss at last-place <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/soccer\/heidenheim-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Heidenheim<\/a> on Saturday, Union announced just before midnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">Eta, who was coaching the Under-19 men&#8217;s team and agreed earlier this month to take over as coach of Union\u2019s women\u2019s team next season, has five games to secure Union&#8217;s Bundesliga survival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">She made history in 2023 as the first female assistant coach in the Bundesliga and across the top divisions of Europe\u2019s \u201cbig five\u201d soccer leagues. She had to step in for media duties for head coach Nenad Bjelica when he was suspended for three games in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">\u201cI\u2019m delighted that Marie Louise Eta has agreed to take on this role on an interim basis before she becomes head coach of the women\u2019s first team as planned in the summer,\u201d Union sporting director Horst Heldt said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">Baumgart, a former Union player, was appointed during the 2024-25 winter break but Heldt said recent results prompted the club to take drastic action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">\u201cWe\u2019ve had an completely disappointing second half of the season so far and we\u2019re not letting the table fool us \u2014 our situation remains precarious and we desperately need points to secure our place in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">Defeat in Heidenheim left Union in 11th place in the 18-team division, just seven points clear of St. Pauli in the relegation zone with five rounds remaining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">\u201cTwo wins out of 14 games since the winter break and the performances shown in recent weeks do not give us the confidence that we can turn things around with the current setup. We have therefore decided to make a fresh start,\u201d Heldt said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">Union next hosts Wolfsburg, which is also fighting for survival, next weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Marie-Louise Eta had previously served as a head coach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Union Berlin has appointed Marie-Louise Eta as the first female coach in charge of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,846,2079,2080,3731],"class_list":{"0":"post-3851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-bundesliga","10":"tag-fc-st-pauli","11":"tag-fc-union-berlin","12":"tag-heidenheim"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}