Soccer. Football has always played a dominant role in my life. I played actively at SV Möhringen and SV Vaihingen. My player pass is now with the district league club SV Sillenbuch, where I ended up because of my circle of friends. Since I am very busy with my job at the German Football Association (DFB) and travel a lot, I no longer have regular time for training, so unfortunately I can no longer play football that often. And if I don’t train, I can’t play either, is my attitude, so I’ll only be used in exceptional cases – when there is an emergency and we might otherwise not bring a team together. I really only see myself as an absolute stopgap when things get stuck in terms of personnel.
I grew up in Möhringen, where I graduated from high school in 2009 and still live today. I then studied at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Stuttgart until 2012 and completed my bachelor’s degree in sports management at the Württemberg State Sports Association (WLSB) and its state sports school in Ostfildern-Ruit. When I was 23 years old, Jürgen Sauer, President of SV Vaihingen and City Councilor in Stuttgart, and Michaela Netzer-Voit brought me to the SIA as the first full-time managing director. It is a multi-branch association with twelve departments and around 2500 members. It is one of the largest sports clubs in the state capital. Founded in 1889 as a gymnastics club, in addition to gymnastics, fitness and health sports, SV Vaihingen now also offers badminton, cheerleading, soccer, handball, a department for the hearing impaired, judo, athletics, swimming, dancing, table tennis and volleyball. The club has optimal conditions on its sports grounds in Schwarzbach. Since I was now more or less self-conscious and was also responsible for eleven other departments, I ended my active football career at the SVV. The four years and seven months at the head of the office and my work for the entire association gave me a lot of insights into the work of the association and valuable experience. During this time, in 2015/2016, I also graduated as a state-certified football manager and in football management at the Fürth cloverleaf campus.
The path to professional football was mapped out early on – but not as a player.
Actually, I’ve always been convinced that I would switch to professional football one day, not as a player, but in a different role. And so, after my time with the SVV, I came to the DFB’s U-National Team as a team manager in May 2017. The Stuttgart Michael Feichtenbeiner – 1999 head coach of the Stuttgarter Kickers in the second Bundesliga and with spectacular cup successes against the first division clubs Borussia Dortmund, Arminia Bielefeld and SC Freiburg moved up to the semifinals – was at that time DFB youth coach and responsible for the German U-15 selection. He gave me the tip that there was a suitable position advertised for me in this area, I applied and received a contract.
The DFB system was set up in such a way that 20 to 30 honorary employees went with the respective youth selection teams for three years and ensured continuity before they switched back to the younger ones after the U17. I graduated from the U-17 European Championship in Ireland, but our team – head coach Michael Feichtenbeiner – unfortunately did not achieve a convincing 3-1 win over Austria after a 3-1 defeat against Italy and a narrow 1-0 defeat against Spain for advancement, and we were eliminated as third party. Nevertheless, it was a great highlight and a nice end with the boys, some of whom have already made it to the 1st Bundesliga, as well as the entire coaching and staff team. The two years with a lot of traveling felt like being with a big family. Nevertheless, the stress during this time with around 150 travel days a year was already enormous and, to be honest, it became too much for me.
So it was very convenient for me that a position in the staff unit for national teams and academy of DFB director Oliver Bierhoff, to which five employees belonged, became vacant, for which I applied internally. Bierhoff has a total of around 150 employees. The “Inner Circle”, for which I was then chosen, included, among others, the sports director Horst Hrubesch and Panagiotis “Joti” Chatzialexiou, since January 2018 sporting director of national teams and thus responsible for the national teams and coaching staff for women and men, the promotion of talent Competence centers and the elite football schools, the Scouting & Match Analysis department and the experts from the national teams.
At the end of 2020, Oliver Bierhoff spoke to me, among others, that a management position would be vacant in the direct vicinity of the senior national team and that I would not be interested. I accepted without hesitation, as this was a dream come true. I have now been in this position for 15 months and the main responsible and direct contact person for the entire coaching team, including co-trainers, special coaches and game analysts. My job is mega-interesting, and I’ve always been with the national team on site since preparing for Euro 2020. My office is in Frankfurt, but currently I am mostly in the home office and only once a week at the DFB headquarters. It takes me a little more than two hours to get from door to door, but I use the time on the train to work.
The camp for EM 2020 was a very special experience.
My greatest moment so far was during the European Championship last summer, when we drove to the base camp in the Franconian Herzogenaurach in the team bus. That was a great feeling! At the headquarters of Adidas, the German national team moved into the specially built EM 2020 camp, our own quarters, built on a piece of forest that was of course not torn down after the EM, but continued to be used for teams and conferences. There were always great encounters and conversations away from the hustle and bustle, for example with Manuel Neuer or Serge Gnabry. Everything on a collegial and informal level – those were really cool moments.
I’m happy in my job now, that’s exactly my thing. My tasks in team management, which consists of a total of three employees, are varied. When the national team meets, the entire entourage consists of 70 to 80 people. Everything has to be well organized and everything has to work. We are the contact person around the clock for the coach, the players and all employees related to the team. I think it’s great to be able to work with such great personalities. The cooperation with Jogi Löw, with whom I am not related, was really outstanding and trusting, and the work with his successor Hansi Flick is also a lot of fun. The national coach is very committed and demands a lot from everyone else to the same extent.
There is little time for intensive talks with the national team, but it is now more and more common for players like Captain Neuer, Joshua Kimmich, Serge Gnabry or Robin Gosens to drop by the organization office or sit down to chat with us . The guys are very open-minded and approachable, which is why it’s great fun.
• The text was created as part of the “My Moment” series by the Stuttgart Sports Region, which in 2021 will be looking at its 25th anniversary. Every week in the series, a person has their say who has experienced a special sporting moment in the past quarter of a century.
