The ball landed on Emily’s foot, she was half a meter from the right goalpost. She took the ball from the run and shot it in really cool. Her teammates ran towards her and cheered loudly. It was the 1-0, the goal to win the cup in the final, which the juniors of 1. FC Union won against FFC Berlin on June 5th.
“Before we talked about how happy we are when we score a goal,” says Emily with a laugh. “It felt incredibly good.” Emily Zill is 15 years old, comes from Berlin-Schoeneberg and has been playing soccer for many years. She started with the sport after her father took her to Hertha BSC in the Olympic Stadium. She first came to the club at the age of nine at 1. FC Schöneberg, in 2019 she switched to Union.
Emily made the decision herself to leave her first club and did a trial at Union. After elementary school, Emily switched to a sports school in Köpenick. Union footballers and up to the eighth grade also sailors go into their class. She currently trains six times a week. Three times with the club, twice with the school, once with the national team and she usually has a game at the weekend.
It doesn’t give her much free time, but since most of her friends play on her team, that’s not so bad. Of course, being with the same people every day is a bit annoying at times, but when it gets too tiring with one person, they just do something with other people on their team. Balancing school and soccer isn’t that difficult for her as she has time between school and training to do homework and study.
1. FC Union provides the young players with extra rooms for this. Emily takes 45 minutes by public transport every day to get to training. She sometimes finds it a bit stressful to drive through Berlin for so long and to train so often, but she doesn’t want to give up competitive sports. Her goal is to eventually turn pro. The winning goal in the cup final was an important step. After that, Emily was nominated for the semi-finals of the German U17 championship, where the B youth of 1. FC Union competed. “It was an indescribable feeling,” she says happily.
While she finds it a shame that she didn’t play in the game, it was exciting enough for her to be there. Emily plays in the support squad. But she wants to be in the “right” squad. Sighting training sessions are currently taking place for this, and she also took part in them last weekend. The squad coaches led the training. At first they trained normally and held a small tournament. That means they played on a smaller field. In the end they played with eleven players on the full field. The training lasted two hours in total.
Emily has a good feeling and hopes she made the squad. You then go to training courses with the squad and play against other federal states. The coaches from the German Football Association are watching, and if you’re good enough, you can be spotted. That might be the start of a professional career. The women of 1. FC Union play in the Regionalliga Nordost. This is the third highest division.
But ever since she started playing soccer, Emily’s dream has been to play in the premier league. At the moment she has no plans to change clubs. She had a successful season with her club. But in a few years she might want to move to VfL Wolfsburg. They play in the Bundesliga and are at the top of the table. Emily also followed the European Women’s Soccer Championship with great interest.
“When the best national teams in Europe play against each other, you can learn something and learn a lot. Especially when it comes to tactics and understanding of the game,” she says. She couldn’t watch every game but tried to watch at least the German games. Her favorite player is Dzsenifer Marozsán. She plays in the German national team and is currently under contract with the French team Olympique Lyon. When asked if Emily has any role models, she replies: “Actually, all professional players are my role models because they have all already achieved what I want to achieve later.”
The amount of training required to be able to play football successfully is just as high for women as it is for men. Nevertheless, they earn significantly less and often have to work in addition to competitive sports. In many clubs, equipment such as shoes and training suits are provided by the sponsors for the youth sector.
This applies to girls and boys. While the girls in the offspring are not yet earning any money, the most talented boys are already signing contracts and being paid. Hopefully that will change in the future. During the summer holidays, Emily has training from the third week. The rest of the time she can relax. But she also goes running with her friend on vacation and trains her technique with the ball.
The season is about to start again. She wishes her team a good next season, in which they act as a team and play well together. After the summer break, she will start the next season with the U17s in the youth Bundesliga. They will play against Wolfsburg, Hanover and Meppen, among others. This is of course a big step in development.
Emily thinks that if they work together as a team, they can play successfully. They just have to implement what they’ve learned and just show that on the pitch. Still, the most important thing for Emily is that everyone has fun and nobody gets hurt!
