Unfamiliar role

Lisa Schmitz spoke to us about her early days as a footballer when she was the only girl in a team of boys, and having to get used to something different at VfL Wolfsburg.

VfL-Wolfsburg-Torhüterin Schmitz im Torwarttraining.

A girl in goal? When Lisa Schmitz first began playing football in Cologne, for Germania Zündorf’s E-Jugend youth team, she used to get plenty of mockery from the opposition. Some 20 years later, those youngsters are being made to eat their words with the UEFA Women’s Champions League, the DFB Cup and the Google Pixel Women’s Bundesliga being played in front of crowds that are continually on the increase. And from next season, Schmitz will be back in Germany, the 31-year-old keeper signing for VfL Wolfsburg after a spell in France. She had had plenty of ups and downs in what is already a long career, and she hopes that her best days are still ahead of her.

The attraction of the Bundesliga

Schmitz has spent the last four years playing for Montpellier HSC. “I decided to head over there at the time because I wanted to do something adventurous,” she explains. The time she spent in France was a great experience for her, but the She-Wolves’ new signing eventually started to feel drawn back to Germany. “I watched how the Bundesliga developed over the years, both on the pitch and in terms of the crowds it was getting, and I felt that I wanted to be a part of this progression.“

The only girl in the team

Schmitz came to football via her brothers and her father, who is a commentator for pay-TV channel Sky. A friend suggested she join Germania Zündorf, where she found that she was the only girl in the team. Despite that, she stayed at the club almost all the way through the youth levels. “For a long time I was captain and they gave me total respect and support,” she says of her former team, although she did find herself on the end of negative reactions on a regular basis. “There were plenty of aspects that weren’t so nice though, and some of it even came from the parents rather than the boys.” By the final whistle however, the criticism would invariably have stopped. “By then they’d realised that they probably shouldn’t have made any comments before the match.”

Genuine competition in goal

In 2008, Schmitz moved to the newly created women’s football team at Bayer 04 Leverkusen, going to play for Turbine Potsdam after that and then heading over to Montpellier HSC. For all of those clubs, she was the undisputed number one, but here in Wolfsburg, she now finds herself alongside Germany international Merle Frohms. “I know the standing that Merle has in Germany and at VfL Wolfsburg,” she said, having thought long and hard before joining the club and deciding that this was a challenge that she would relish. “I’ve never been in the position where I might find myself on the bench. It’s going to be a totally new feeling for me. When you’re an athlete, you always want to play, so I’m very much up for the battle. If it turns out that I don’t play, though, then I’ll just have to deal with that and play my part in the development of the team.“