The term “nerd” has changed in recent years. Nerds were originally men who rarely shower. Socially awkward, but so proficient in her specialty (like: computers, coding, comics) that hardly anyone could follow them if they found astounding solutions to tricky problems. Ingenious, but harmless.
Now the Wolfsburg footballer Pernille Harder with 27 goals from the 22 league games this season is anything but harmless and for professional reasons she takes a shower more often than average.
But Harder is nothing more than a soccer nerd, she says that about herself – in Instagram stories and YouTube question-and-answer sessions for fans. When she’s not on the field, she thinks a lot about the game – delves deeply into her own discipline. This is one reason why Pernille Harder is currently the best scorer in German football – and probably one of the best in the world. Ingenious and dangerous.
The Danish, 27 years old, changed from the Swedish league to VfL Wolfsburg in January 2017. Since then, the club has won the double of the championship and the DFB Cup every year. With a win in the cup final against SGS Essen in the afternoon (4.45 p.m .; Liveticker SPIEGEL.de; TV: ARD) the team achieved this for the fourth time in a row.
Harder himself has scored exactly 100 goals in 110 competitive games for VfL. Her last, 5-0 against Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday, was also the last goal of the Bundesliga season. Wolfsburg got the shell, Harder the goalkeeper cannon. In the list of the most successful shooters, she is nine goals ahead of the runner-up. Inka Grings last scored 27 goals ten years ago (28 goals).
Private studies by Ronaldo, Iniesta and Xavi
Harder usually doesn’t even play in the center-forward position. Instead, she is allowed to move freely around the strikers Ewa Pajor and Svenja Huth – or alternatively Alexandra Popp – from the attacking midfield in the system of coach Stephan Lerch. Teammates and coaches rave about their understanding of the game. And that has to do with their way of immersing themselves in football.
Harder not only loves to play football, she also likes to watch and talk about how nerds do it. “With Cristiano Ronaldo, I mainly analyze the freewheeling behavior in the sixteen,” she said recently to the league magazine “Elfen”. “But I also look at midfield strategists like Iniesta or Xavi to learn how to organize the game.” The results of their private studies were exemplary to see at their goals from the two clear league wins against cup opponents Essen.
Title in Wolfsburg: Pernille Harder (r.) With the top scorer, Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir with the shell
Maja Hitij/ Getty Images
34th minute in the first leg in autumn (in the video from 1:30): A Wolfsburg defender gets possession of the ball in his own penalty area. Harder discovers a gap on the left wing behind the Essen Pressing, runs into it – and thus turns her colleague’s liberation campaign into a goal opportunity. Before she accepts the long pass, she looks up briefly, recognizes the timing of the advancing defender. With the first contact, she strokes the ball under her lunge; with the second, she pulls into the penalty area from the left and pushes her body into the path of the pursuing opponent. With the third, she completes at full speed. A sense of space and opponents – an iniesta virtue.
In the return leg in mid-June, Harder lurked at the penalty spot (in the video from 1:24), her team attacks on the right. Before the cross comes, Harder indicates a sprint to the short post, sending her opponent into nowhere. She herself sits down in the back area and precisely steers the flank into the far corner with the left inside when walking backwards – a Ronaldo walkway.
A goal every 59 minutes
Harder hits with the left almost as often as with the right, also with the head, from the penalty point and by direct free kick. This season she scored an average of every 59 minutes. Best value in Europe. That Pernille Harder was not yet a world footballer is also due to the fact that she has never participated in a World Cup with Denmark’s national team.
And yet, curiously, Harder suddenly became the focus of attention for a moment at the 2019 World Cup. A photo after Sweden’s sixteen final victory over Canada spread online: Harder, in a yellow Swedish jersey, kisses the Swedish defender Magdalena Eriksson from the stands. The two became a couple at Linköping FC. Eriksson is now playing for Chelsea. And also her friend, says Harder, a soccer nerd. The two talked a lot about the job.
Coming out on the World Cup stage: Pernille Harder congratulates her partner Magda Eriksson on entering the quarter-finals with Sweden
Simon Hastegard / image images / Image Agency
If she lived her homosexuality privately in the past without thinking about it further, since the kissing photo of the World Cup she has seen herself as an ambassador for LGBTQ rights. In May, she said: “For men, too, I hope that an active player has the courage to commit to his homosexuality, because there are certainly these players.” Through the reactions to her outing, she understood how important queer idols from sport are for young people.
Harder has indicated from time to time that he would like to play in a team with Eriksson again. In fact, it is questionable how long she will stay in Wolfsburg. As a footballer who wants to develop in the world class, Harder is looking for competition at the highest level. Does she find it in the long term in the Bundesliga? Wolfsburg has not lost a single game this season, scoring 93 goals and conceding only 8. And league inequality will increase. Final opponents SGS Essen, for example, have to hand over three internationals to top duo Wolfsburg and Munich this summer. Top talent Lena Oberdorf will play against their future club in Cologne on Saturday.
Harder’s contract in Wolfsburg only runs for a year. In a post on Fifa’s website, she announced that she wanted to try at least two more leagues in her career, after the Swedish and the German. The club’s press office is currently asking questions about the future. Harder says to SPIEGEL: “What motivates me is to develop myself further in training every day. Feeling your own development is the greatest satisfaction – together with winning titles.” At least the latter can probably guarantee Wolfsburg in the future, too, Harders Team goes into the cup final as a big favorite.
