Susanne Laasch has won the German American Football Championship three times with the Berlin Kobra Ladies. The 45-year-old was invited by a friend to a trial session with the Kobras in Wilmersdorf in the early 2000s and ended up staying there.
“The ladies’ team had just formed from the Berlin Adler Girls in 2004 and drew fresh motivation from the reorganization. This spirit attracted me directly and so it happened that I quickly became a permanent part of the team without any great competition ambitions,” says Laasch. “I then found my place in defense and was able to celebrate some professional successes with the girls for five years.”
After her career, she stayed true to football and two years ago became the head coach for the juniors of the Bundesliga club Berlin Adler, the so-called champions team, in which young people aged ten to 16 play. In addition, Laasch is also the trainer of the Bambinis, i.e. boys and girls between the ages of six and ten.
The ball game American Football, which originated in the USA, has established itself in Germany in recent years and has long since ceased to be just a one-time event at the beginning of the year when the Super Bowl is on. With its high speed and frequent, sometimes hard tackles, football is a sport characterized by great physical exertion. While such an exercise is still conceivable for young people, it is somewhat difficult for the very young.
Flag Football is the perfect complement. “Flag football is the contactless game variant for children and young people,” explains Laasch. She and her wife have already played in the senior team to get their own picture of the sport. “At some point a new coach was needed for my son’s team. From then on, another family man and I took over,” says Laasch.
In contrast to the classic American variant, flag football is still comparatively unknown, but interest has increased enormously in Berlin in recent years and was very popular after the last corona-related lockdown. “Similar to my son, football is no longer the holy grail,” says Laasch.
Even if football has not yet reached the masses, the trainer has observed a growing enthusiasm, especially in the youth team. “For a long time now, Bundesliga games have not only been streamed here, but people now also arrange to meet up to watch football.” Where the former professional player still sees potential for expansion is the proportion of girls in the two teams she supervises, which is only around ten percent lie.
In her work as a trainer, the use of the streaming tool “Pixellot”, an AI-based camera system, is a special feature. She was made aware of it by the father of a child and was immediately enthusiastic about it: “The Pixellot camera system was specially developed for small clubs and amateur sports. We can use the camera to record and evaluate our training sessions and games and stream them live via the Pixellot app.”
That means even friends, family and fans who can’t make it to games can be there live. “This creates a whole new level of visibility and appreciation for youth, but also for women and niche sports.” Laasch explains that there is a pair of grandparents on the older team who follow the game highlights from Turkey every week.
The panoramic transmission also enables a highly professional game analysis – important for coaches and an advantage in particular for older teams: “The analysis function of Pixellot is even more relevant for the training of my teenagers. Here we work on the game tactics more intensively, take a closer look at how defense and offense are set up.
According to Laasch, the pixel lot camera follows suit and captures the entire playing field. “That way, I can look back at the game scenes afterwards and selectively cut out highlights such as a touchdown.” The most beautiful moves then even make it into the joint WhatsApp group with children and parents.
