Sabrina Wittmann in Ingolstadt
She is the first female head coach in German professional football
May 2, 2024, 5:08 p.m
There are still three match days left in the 3rd league – enough time for a change of coach at FC Ingolstadt. And this is historic: For the first time, a woman becomes head coach in German professional football. Sabrina Wittmann has been with the club for 19 years.
Third division soccer team FC Ingolstadt has fired its head coach Michael Köllner with immediate effect and is relying on Sabrina Wittmann until the end of the season. The 32-year-old will thus become Germany’s first female coach in men’s professional football – at least in the front line: At the beginning of the year, Marie-Louise Eta represented the suspended head coach Nenad Bjelica on the sidelines as an assistant coach with Danijel Jumic at the Bundesliga club Union Berlin. Inka Grings (SV Straelen) and Imke Wübbenhorst (Sportfreunde Lotte) had previously coached men’s fourth division teams.
Wittmann has previously coached the U19s in Ingolstadt, with whom she celebrated runner-up status last weekend. She is supported by her long-time assistant coach Fabian Reichler as well as the previous coaching team around Maniyel Nergiz and Julian Kolbeck. As the FCI, which was only in eleventh place in the table before the last three match days, announced that under Köllner “the further sporting development of our team, which is necessary to achieve our goals, has largely failed to materialize in 2024”.
Sports director Ivo Grlic explained: “As fourth in the first half of the season, our plan was to at least be at the top until the end of the season. But since the start of 2024, our inconsistent performances have been more like a roller coaster ride, which is also evidenced by the current 15th place in the second half of the season. Due to the sporting stagnation, we have now taken action.” Köllner, who led 1. FC Nürnberg into the Bundesliga in 2018, has been responsible for the FCI since April 2023.
“Probably knows our club better than almost anyone else”
Wittmann, who was born in Ingolstadt, is looking forward to her job until the end of the season: “There is no place where I would have preferred to make my debut. Ingolstadt is something very special for me, my hometown club. I started here 19 years ago, played myself and took my first steps as a trainer.”
“Sabrina Wittmann probably knows our club better than almost anyone else and is a Schanzer through and through. As the acting head coach of our very successful U19, she has continuously developed over the past few years – both professionally and personally – and rightly enjoys the utmost respect from everyone in the club high priority,” explained managing director Dietmar Beiersdorfer. “We are convinced that Sabrina is exactly the right person to bring our first team’s season to a positive end due to her expertise in teaching football and also thanks to her emotionality.”
The former national player Grings trusts Wittmann to take on the task. “Sabrina will master her role, she knows the team,” said Grings on t-online: “I’m really pleased that the club is focusing on quality and giving the coach the opportunity to develop and advance internally.”
Trouble with the DFB
Wittmann does not yet have a UEFA Pro license for trainers. She did not receive a training position at the DFB – although there is a pilot project for coaches who do not meet all the training requirements. According to a report by WDR’s “Sport Inside”. Wittmann lacked “five months of relevant coaching activity,” as the DFB said. However, the coach of SpVgg Unterhaching, Marc Unterberger, is part of the project – although he is missing one and a half years of “relevant coaching activity”. Wittmann and Ingolstadt were frustrated, especially since the coach couldn’t apply for the pilot project because, according to Beiersdorfer and “Sport Inside”, the clubs didn’t know about it. A subsequent application only resulted in a rejection. DFB managing director Andreas Rettig regretted that there had been no applications from women. On “Sport Inside” he then added that there was no woman who met the admission requirements.
At the beginning of April, Wittmann told the DFB in an interview for the association’s website: “Role models are important so that other women realize what is possible.” Now she can be a role model herself. It starts for them and the Schanzer on Saturday (7.30 p.m., magenta and in the ntv.de live ticker) against Waldhof Mannheim.