Union Berlin has decided to part ways with coach Urs Fischer, who led the club to Bundesliga promotion in 2019 and made his first appearance in the Champions League this season.
However, the team's results this season have not been good, with a series of 13 consecutive losses in all competitions, before drawing with Napoli in the recent Champions League.
Fischer's farewell marked the end of the most successful chapter in the team's history, but immediately, they created another historic milestone at An der Alten Försterei Stadium.
Accordingly, Marie- Louise Eta will become the first female coach in the Bundesliga.
Eta will join the team as an assistant to Marco Grote after he was appointed as interim manager of the first team until further notice. They have worked together in the Union U19 team, after Eta joined the team in the summer of 2023, including all 4 matches in the UEFA Youth League of the team this season.
The 32-year-old assistant from Dresden is a former Bundesliga U17 champion with Turbine potsdam in 2005, 2006 and 2008 before being promoted to the Bundesliga first team in the 2008-09 season.
Eta was a member of the team that won the UEFA Women's Champions League in 2010 and 3 consecutive Bundesliga titles. She continued to play for Hamburg, Cloppenburg and Werder Bremen before retiring in 2018, at the age of 26.
As a defensive midfielder, Eta has played most of her career under her daughter Bagehorn before marrying former player and coach Benjamin Eta in 2014.
She also represented the German women's team at the U23 level and won the U20 World Cup before becoming assistant to Bettina Wiegmann at the U15 team. She started her coaching career with the Bremen U15 men's team.
After completing his professional coaching license at the German Football Confederation Academy in Frankfurt and leading the German U17 team, Eta was brought to Union as Grote's assistant in the German U19 men's team.
Eta will now become the first female coach to appear on the bench of men's football in the Bundesliga. Her first match with Grote was Union against Augsburg on Saturday, November 25.
In case they have not found a long-term replacement for Fischer, Eta will also be present in the UEFA Champions League match against Braga next Wednesday and against Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga next weekend.
This is not the first time the Bundesliga has had a woman participate in men's football. Previously, Bibiana Steinhaus became the first female referee in one of Europe's top tournaments in the 2017-2019 season.
