Alexandra Popp: Thank you, Poppi!

In our “Green Space” column, Oliver Fritsch, Christof Siemes, Stephan Reich and Anna Kemper take turns writing about the world of football and the world of football. This article is part of ZEIT am Wochenend, issue 45/2024.

When I read that Alexandra Popp When she retired from the national team, I thought about the first time I heard about her. It was 2011, the Women’s World Cup was taking place in Germany, and when you were around the DFB camp, you heard from everyone: Poppi is going to be a really big player. The future belongs to her.

Alexandra Popp was only twenty at the time, and she achieved what so many people who have all their hopes pinned on at that age fail to do: she fulfilled all expectations, perhaps even exceeded them. Because she was and is not only successful in sport, she has also become the face of women’s football, respected and popular. When she was on the pitch for Germany, you had the feeling that she would get it right, with her skills, her commitment and her fighting spirit. She is as strong a figure of identification as any other footballer before her. There are more girls in the club every year football play, now over 100,000, is not least due to her.

I’ve never played football. There used to be great footballers: Silvia Neid, Doris Fitschen, Heidi Mohr. But when I started playing sports at the age of five, a women’s national team was founded for the first time. The first game was televised when I was twelve.

It never even occurred to me to play football. Sometimes I think that’s a shame, like the other day when I was playing football in the garden with my father and son and I felt that joy when you feel as soon as you hit it that it’s going to be a really good ball.

I found other sports back then. They had nothing to do with a ball. Because whenever I played something with a ball on the street with my brothers, people laughed at it, sometimes even made fun of it. Unlike my brothers, I had no feel for the ball. That may or may not be true, but I firmly believed that it was. Like maybe many other girls.

In any case, when I played club hockey like my brothers, I had to do it in a boys’ team because there was no girls’ team, even though I grew up in a big city with two big hockey clubs. The fact that my grandma constantly told me that all the running back and forth on the court wasn’t good for a girl actually spurred me on. But when one of my teammates remarked snidely that they only took me to the games because they needed my brother as a referee, I stopped.

Many of the footballers who are now national team players had to play in boys’ teams and did not allow themselves to be intimidated, including Alexandra Popp. I can well imagine that it wasn’t always easy. I admire her for that too.

Of course it’s no one’s fault that I didn’t become a mini version of Alexandra Popp. Probably neither my talent nor my enthusiasm was great enough for it. But many possible Alexandra Popps of my generation never had the chance to discover their talent. That’s why I’m happy that my friends’ daughters play soccer with ease and joy. That when my son plays “Goal of the Month”, he of course also recreates goals from Alexandra Popp and Klara Bühl.

When I recently said that it was a shame that the European Football Championship wouldn’t be back for another four years, my son looked at me in surprise. He replied: “No, Mom, the European Championships are coming next summer!” Afterwards I outplayed my father on the pitch with a stepover and felt like Poppi. Feeling for the ball? Paah!