Skip to main content

“You get a lot out of football”

Björn Bergmann volunteers as a children’s coach - and teaches the young players not only footballing skills.

Johannes_GöbelAufgezeichnet von Johannes Göbel, 24.01.2025
„Der Fußball gibt einem viel“
© dpa

“My sons got me back into football. I’d played for a long time myself as a child and during my teenage years, but at the age of 25 I’d hung up my boots. And yet I’d been a passionate and ambitious goalie, had been picked for a regional team, amongst other things, and had played in the youth system of SV Wehen Wiesbaden, which is now in the third division. Once I’d completed my teacher training course at uni I somehow lacked the time for football. But then, during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, my local club TuS Lindenholzhausen in Hesse was urgently looking for children’s coaches. I gave myself a kick up the backside and said yes, though at the time I was already working as a teacher of German, politics and history. But my sons were already taking their first tentative steps in football, and parents are a popular choice when clubs are looking for volunteer coaches, who are not always easy to find.

A coach also needs to be able to take more of a back seat and give children the chance to improve their game simply by playing.
Björn Bergmann, football coach
Björn Bergmann coaches young footballers.
Björn Bergmann coaches young footballers. © privat

Ever since, I’ve been coaching my older son’s team with various other colleagues. I started out with the mini kickers - kids aged five or six who chase after the ball, sometimes rather haphazardly, with bright eyes. Now we are with the under 11s, where our mixed team of nine- and ten-year-old girls and boys competes against other teams on a half-sized pitch. In recent years I’ve also taken the team through the new versions of children’s football, however. FUNiño involves children playing against each other in really small teams so that everyone has lots of ball contact and opportunities for success. A coach also needs to be able to take more of a back seat and give children the chance to improve their game simply by playing. That’s very different from the children’s and youth football that I used to play myself. 

Dieses YouTube-Video kann in einem neuen Tab abgespielt werden

YouTube öffnen

Third party content

We use YouTube to embed content that may collect data about your activity. Please review the details and accept the service to see this content.

Open consent form

Piwik is not available or is blocked. Please check your adblocker settings.

Of course, it is still important to teach technique and other basic footballing skills; just recently I completed a DFB course in goalkeeper coaching. I do invest an enormous amount of time in my volunteering: training, matches, tournaments, team activities with parents and children. Meaning my family life is rather dominated by football. But you also get a lot out of football - for instance, it brings together people from all different backgrounds. Especially these days, when social cohesion cannot be taken for granted, football teaches you to focus on playing as a team. That is also something I am keen to convey in my role as coach.”

Football in Germany

In 2025, more than 7.7 million people in Germany - a new record - are members of around 24,000 football clubs. 2.27 million club members are active players. The number of active players - especially girls - in children’s and youth teams has increased significantly: nearly 107,000 girls aged 16 or below laced up their boots last season - an increase of 7.5 percent compared with the year before.