ETA: ABOUT TIME
If you thought the government’s newly-appointed “commonsense tsar”, Esther McVey, had a job on her hands in the UK, wait until she hears about what is happening in Germany. Union Berlin have only gone and appointed Marie-Louise Eta, a real-life woman, as their new assistant coach, in the latest act of wokery to hit football. The 32-year-old is the new assistant to Marco Grote on an interim basis, and will be the first female coach to appear on a Bundesliga bench.
Eta has arrived right on time in the backroom staff after Urs Fischer was sacked, simply for being a man – or possibly because Union are bottom of the Bundesliga with six points from 11 matches, and already out of their first-ever Big Cup campaign. Either way, this appointment could spell the end for Proper Football Men, and McVey should move fast to ensure Big Sam, Big Mick and Average Height Neil are not denied further years of mediocrity by the bloomin’ wokerati.
Union’s new hire won the Frauen-Bundesliga three times, and a Women’s Big Cup, with Turbine Potsdam, before retiring from playing aged 26 to focus on becoming a coach. Does that qualify her to get the best out of Brenden Aaronson and David Datro Fofana? Can a Uefa Pro Licence and six years’ experience of coaching in youth football, including three different age groups for the German women’s national team, really prepare a person for the challenge of facing Augsburg at home? Yeah, it probably does.
“It is not a conscious decision to have a woman as an assistant coach. For me, she is a trained football teacher,” the Union president, Dirk Zingler, said on Thursday. Still, the news has made international headlines, with the Bundesliga’s website claiming Eta has “broken the grass ceiling” – a phrase that sort of sounds clever at first but actually doesn’t make sense, but that is for another edition of Football Daily.
Eta, who told Kicker last December of her ambition to be an assistant coach in the men’s leagues, is a pioneer – someone that has worked for these moments since leaving home aged 13 to attend a sports boarding school and chase her football dream. Those 19 years of hard work have seemingly paid off. Giving responsibility to someone that is highly qualified and experienced? It’s such a crazy idea, it might just work.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I think Paolo Maldini said something like: ‘If you have to make a tackle, you weren’t in the right position in the first place. If a defender can go in a game and seem to be doing absolutely nothing, then he is doing absolutely everything right” – Marc Guéhi on how he hopes to be an invisible asset for England at Euro 2024.
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“Manchester United are getting a new chief suit called Patrick Stewart? Are they hoping he can turn around their Enterprise? He’ll have his work cut out to make it so” – Darren Leathley.
“I never watch reality TV, but this time I might just make an exception; the prospect of watching Nigel F*rage in the jungle has truly great appeal; for once, we can see the b0llocks going into his gob rather than coming out of it” – Simon Gill.
“Re: watching football abroad [Dailies passim]. In 2010 I was in Timisoara, watching my first live football match. The hosts were playing Manchester City in a Big Vase qualifier. When Mario Ballotelli scored the winner, I had the sense not to celebrate, surrounded as I was by 40 drunk, well-built Romanians” – Krishna Moorthy.
“It was great to see the FA Cup spirit alive and well in Charlton’s replay last night, as the Addicks printed the match tickets for their non-league opponents who had never previously had the need for paper tickets. The irony being that their opposition were Cray Valley (Paper Mills) who one would have thought were uniquely suited to this task. Aside from Wolverhampton Wanderers (stationary at Molineux since 1889), are there any other examples of inappropriately named teams?” – Keiron Fulop.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Keiron Fulop, who gets a copy of United with Dad by Simon Lloyd, published by Pitch Publishing. Visit their brilliant football book store here.
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